The Aftermath
by Whiskey10882
Summary: Topher has always been interested in Whiskey. He insists that he's not attracted to her. But what will happen when Whiskey becomes Claire Saunders? Will Topher's interest become something more?
1. Chapter 1: Denial

CHAPTER 1 - Denial

_Topher was watching Whiskey, as he often did. He had tried to stop himself from watching her, but he just couldn't. He'd tried to convince himself that he wasn't attracted to her. You couldn't really be attracted to a doll, Topher insisted. After all as they had no personality, the only aspect that you could be attracted to was their looks._

_Although Whiskey acted the same as all the other dolls when they wasn't imprinted, Topher felt that there was something different about her. She wasn't the most beautiful of the dolls, but she had an aura of perfection and kindness about her. Or maybe that just came from being the most highly requested active in the entire house. The number one doll. _

_As far as Topher could recall, over the last five months Whiskey hadn't gone more than three days without being sent on an engagement. For some strange reason that made Topher feel almost proud. No, no, no! He shouldn't feel that way about her! He was meant to be big brother: impartial. _

_Though, then again, there had been some instances, when she'd been imprinted with a particularly responsive personality and it had been harder to be impartial. If it weren't that he knew it was impossible, he would think that she reacted to him in both her doll and imprinted state._

_There was that time when she'd been imprinted as the perfect wife. She had smiled at him sweetly and offered him her number before being whisked away by her handler to meet her true love. When she had arrived back to be wiped she had looked so radiant and overjoyed. She had proudly showed him her new wedding ring before he had been forced to put her in the chair and wipe away all of her memories of the happiest day of her life. _

_As the chair had lifted her unconscious body into an upright position, Topher had removed the ring from her finger and given it to her handler. He'd taken one last glance at her peaceful face before her eyes had fluttered open and he'd begun the standard post-wipe script, acting as if nothing was wrong._

_There had been the sweet imprint of a mother, paid for by a husband who had just lost his wife in a car crash. He had been desperate to see the mother of his one year old baby one last time._

_The first thing Whiskey had done when the imprint was complete was stand up and take Topher's hand, smile and ask where the baby was. It had taken strength to release her hand and let her step into the elevator with her handler. When she had turned around, waved to him, and called out that when she got back she'd show him pictures of the baby, Topher had felt his knees weaken and he'd slumped down into the imprint chair. He'd sat there for a while before shaking the image of Whiskey from his head and returning to his computer. _

_Then there was the time she had been imprinted as a dominatrix. He had designed the imprint himself and although he knew he shouldn't try to engage with her after she'd been imprinted, he had been curious. When her handler had left to go to the bathroom during the imprinting process, warning bells had sounded in his head but he'd ignored them. Whiskey's handler still hadn't returned by the time he'd finished imprinting her and that was when he'd begun to worry. _

_She had stood up from the chair and stalked towards him, Topher backing away until he had ended up pressed up against the computer interface. She'd raised her hand to trace his jaw line and pressed her warm body flush against his. He'd glanced worriedly at the security camera on the roof, painfully aware that every second of the scene was being recorded. But his burgeoning panic attack had been halted when Whiskey, or whoever she thought she was, had pressed her lips roughly against his. Her lips had tasted sweet and his hands had unconsciously found her hips as hers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer to her. _

_Topher had forgotten all about the security cameras as he had allowed her tongue to enter his mouth where it twined with his own. Her hands had slid from his hair down to his chest where she'd slid her hands up under his shirt and vest. He'd moaned into her mouth as she'd slid her hands over his bare skin, leaving behind a burning trail. _

_Then he'd heard the sound of the door to the office bathroom slamming shut and he'd suddenly realized what he had been doing. He'd pushed her away from him and guided her back into the chair. He'd had just enough time to fix his shirt and wipe her lipstick of his face before her handler had walked back into the imprinting room. _

_As Whiskey had been led away by her handler she had looked back over her shoulder and blown him a kiss, winking at him as the elevator doors had slid shut._


	2. Chapter 2: Emotions

CHAPTER 2 - Emotions

Topher sat at his computer. His eyes glued to the screen, his hand on the mouse. Staring at his computer's desktop screen. He jumped to his feet and began to pace around his office, avoiding the many benches covered with gadgets which were running and providing a soft background hum.

On most days Topher found this hum relaxing, he found that it helped him think and made him feel at home in his safe haven of an office, surrounded by a world that he wasn't fully sure was morally right. Today the hum only caused him more agitation as he paced faster and faster in increasingly smaller circles. When he reached the railing that separated the two floors of his office, Topher leant against it and looked out of the large glass window, down to the main floor below.

There he could see the actives walking around peacefully, occasionally stopping to greet each other. Topher wanted to shout. At them, at himself or at the world in general, he wasn't sure. How could they be so calm and emotionless after what had just happened? After so many of them had been slaughtered by one of their own; Alpha.

Adelle had once told him that he had been selected for the job of programmer because he had no morals; but looking down on the oblivious dolls, Topher felt guilt wash over him, smothering his previous rage.

These poor people, he thought to himself. People, not dolls. After all, one day they were going to get their bodies back, as they had been promised. They had been assured that they would be safe while they were serving their contract in the dollhouse. After the 'unfortunate technological anomaly' that had just occurred they had lost many dolls. Those people would never get their bodies back, Toper mused as he watched a group of actives taking a tai chi class.

He didn't understand what had gone wrong with Alpha. The only thing that had made him any different from the other dolls was his interest in Echo. It wasn't really an obsession, more of an attraction, kind of a unconscious romantic attraction. When Echo and Alpha sat down to eat they would often sit together, they would sit next to each other in the art room and more often than not they would stand together during tai chi classes.

These were things that only Topher noticed because of the 180 degree view he had through his office window. It didn't worry him though. He knew that although they wiped the actives, there were always basic instincts that remained. It was even more obvious in the way Victor an Sierra had been grouping recently. At least, it hadn't worried him until this morning, when Alpha's attraction to Echo grew into a dangerous obsession.

All day Topher had been feeling as though the morning's massacre was his fault. A result of his easy acceptance of the actives' strange behavior. Maybe if he had reported it, none of this would have happened.

Topher's gaze shifted over to Dr. Saunders' old office where he could just see Whiskey through the glass panels. She was reclining in the examination chair with one of the doctor's assistants standing beside her dabbing ointment on the gashes that had been carved into her face. Every time the assistant touched her face with the cotton bud her eyes scrunched up in pain and her mouth tightened, her wide, frightened eyes filling with tears.

Topher walked out of his office, down the wooden staircase and across the main floor. When he reached the door to what used to be Dr Saunders' office he halted suddenly as a dizzy spell hit him.

Topher slid slowly to the ground, his back against the wall of the office as he fought off the tide of memories threatening to drown him.


	3. Chapter 3: Remembering

CHAPTER 3 - Remembering

_It was strange for Topher to spend a lot of time outside his office, even if he was still inside the Dollhouse; but today he was feeling restless. So far it had been a relatively quite day in the dollhouse and Topher had only had to wipe Whiskey. The only engagement of the day had required imprinting India with a basic hooker imprint for some paranoid politician who was worried about his reputation and had nothing better to spend his riches on._

_Topher walked past Sierra who was relaxing on one of the couches at the edge of the main floor. Recently she had been being requested for more and more engagements and she was now one of the most popular dolls, besides Echo and Whiskey._

_"Good day." Sierra intoned as Topher approached her._

_"Hello Sierra."_

_"I try to be my best," Sierra replied in a monotone. "I'm going to swim in the pool. I swim thirty laps every day."_

_"That's nice," Topher smiled awkwardly. As much as he loved working at the dollhouse he sometimes found the blank stares and emotionless voices of the dolls disturbing. _

_He watched Sierra walk off in the direction of the pool before continuing on his rounds. He thought he'd go check on the actives in the gym. It never hurt to take a look at their vitals and review their records every now and again._

_As Topher walked down the dimly lit corridor towards the gym, he reached the art room where he caught a glimpse of Whiskey, Alpha and Echo pruning some miniature trees. Topher had noticed before that Alpha seemed to spend a lot of time with Echo but it was beginning to worry him. He made a mental note to give Alpha's brain a once over the next time he had him in the chair. _

_As he passed the art room Topher saw Alpha stand up from his seat next to Echo. Topher stopped walking, hesitating outside the doorway to the room, wondering where Alpha was going. Normally the actives didn't leave their stations unless they were told to and until then they would usually just sit and stare into space._

_Topher glanced away from Alpha to look and see where his handler was. She was on the other side of the room talking to the lady who ran the art program. As Topher stepped through the doorway and into the room he heard Alpha say something to Whiskey._

_"Let Echo be number one."_

_Topher turned, shocked to hear such a strange sentence being spoken by a doll. He saw Alpha standing in front of Whiskey who was looking up at him with a blank expression. Then Alpha lifted his arm, the pruning shears that he had been using on his tree still clenched in his fist. Topher barely had time to open his mouth, let alone shout a warning, before Alpha lent forward and attacked Whiskey with the sharp blades. _

_The sound of Whiskey's screams pierced the air as she lay before Alpha, defenseless, unimprinted and unable to fight back. Topher felt as if everything was happening in slow motion. Alpha's handler pressed the panic button on her walkie-talkie, simultaneously setting off alarms and calling for security. Then she and the art teacher ran over and attempted to pull Alpha away, while Topher dragged Whiskey over to the corner of the room, leaving behind a smear of sticky blood._

_The security team stormed in and restrained Alpha, but Topher only had eyes for Whiskey who was sobbing and moaning in his arms. It seemed as though all the sounds around him had been muted. All he could hear was Whiskey's agonized gasps and all he could see was her crimson blood gushing from her wounds and pooling on the floor. Suddenly his voice came back to him._

_"Medic!" he croaked, "We need a medic over hear!" he shouted, louder this time. _

_Dr Saunders came running in, followed by three assistants carrying first aid kits and another assistant pushing a gurney. They closed in around Whiskey and Topher was pushed out of the way. He stood for a moment, watching, hoping the medics would move aside to reveal Whiskey alive. _

_For a moment he wondered why he cared so much, but the thought fled his mind as an intense wave of nausea washed over him. He stumbled over to a nearby pot plant and heaved violently, the contents of his stomach upended onto the soil._

_He stood up shakily and looked around. He couldn't see Whiskey as she was so closely surrounded by the doctor and his assistants. The security team was chasing after Alpha who had escaped and run across the room. Topher stayed just long enough to see Alpha viciously attack Dr Saunders; throwing a chair at him before slashing at him with another pair of shears he had grabbed from one of the stations. _

_Then Topher ran from the room, glancing over his shoulder only once in the vain hope that through the crowd of medics and security he would see Whiskey._


	4. Chapter 4: Coping

CHAPTER 4 - Coping

Topher opened his eyes groggily, wondering for a moment what had happened. He looked down at his clothes, expecting to see them stained with Whiskey's blood. So much blood. He dry heaved and staggered to his feet, then he slowly made his way from what had been Dr Saunders' office to the nearest bathroom.

Topher stood in front of the mirror staring at his sickly pale reflection. He sighed and closed his eyes wearily.

The Alpha incident had only occurred that morning but it felt like weeks had passed since the horrible event. Afterwards he had wiped Alpha. Topher had stood in the imprinting room, his clothes still covered with Whiskey's blood and he had wiped Alpha while his whole body shook violently, uncomfortable with being so close to the unstable doll.

Topher had scanned through Alpha's past imprints, hoping to find a personality which could have triggered Alpha's violent outburst. Everything had seemed to be fine, just another standard wipe, when Alpha had sat up in the chair. He had shoved his handler away from his position by the chair, pushing him into one of the interfaces. There had been a horrible cracking sound and sparks had erupted from Topher's broken equipment as the security team has rushed forward and forced Alpha to lie back down.

Topher had glanced back at the computer screen, desperately hoping that the damage to the equipment wouldn't affect the wipe. To his horror he had seen that all of Alpha's past imprints were being imprinted at the same time. A composite event.

"Shut it down!" he'd screamed desperately. But it had been too late, and Alpha had risen serenely from the chair, his eyes glinting dangerously.

Instead of rushing forward and attempting to restrain Alpha, Topher had backed away, well aware of the multitude of fighting and self defense skills that Alpha now possessed. Topher had hidden behind one of the terminals, his eyes scrunched shut, his fists clenched and his face white as he'd listened to the harrowing soundtrack of Alpha slaughtering the security team.

After clearing the imprinting room of security guards, Alpha had left, heading for the main floor. Topher had crawled out from behind the terminal and made his way toward one of the guards. He had held his breath and stared determinedly away from the dead man as he had pressed the panic button on the walkie-talkie that lay beside the man's bloodied hand. A chain of alarms had sounded seconds later, warning the backup security team of the impending danger.

Topher had done all he could and he had stumbled into the office bathroom, locking the door behind him. He had hidden there for over two hours, blocking his ears with his fingers in a desperate attempt to mute the agonized screams floating up from the main floor below.

As Topher had huddled in the bathroom he had wondered if he could have done something more. The unrealistic part of his mind had berated him for not tackling Alpha and forcing him back into the chair. While the rational part had reminded him that he was hardly as strong as the men on the security team and even they hadn't been able to restrain Alpha. Anyway, he was the tech guy, he had hardly any influence on an active when they weren't in the chair.

Topher pushed away the memories, opened his eyes and looked in the mirror again. He gradually gained control of himself once more and attempted to compose his expression, trying to stabilize his mind.


	5. Chapter 5: Adjusting

CHAPTER 5 - Adjusting

Whiskey lay in the examination chair. She was not nervous because she felt safe here. Dr Saunders was nice. The man standing next to her wasn't Dr Saunders though. She hadn't met him before, but she didn't like the way her face burned when he touched it.

Whiskey reached up to touch her face, to try and make the burning go away.

"Whiskey don't touch!" the man scolded her. She decided she liked Dr Saunders better, he had given her a lollipop when she had come to see him earlier that morning after her treatment.

The door to the room opened and both she and the medical assistant looked up to see a man standing in the doorway, his face a sickly pale green. As he made his way over, Whiskey identified him as Topher. She liked Topher. She enjoyed her treatments.

"Good, I've been waiting for someone to get here so I can go and get some more of this ointment. I don't want to leave her on her own." the assistant said to Topher as he walked in

"Is that ointment really going to help?" Topher asked.

"How should I know," the assistant muttered as he walked away, "I'm hardly qualified for this."

Whiskey looked up as Topher sat down on a stool beside her.

"I am not my best." She intoned solemnly. Topher considered the injured, yet beautiful doll in front of him for a long time before replying.

"You are always your best." he replied kindly, looking fondly down at her.

"Alpha said I should let Echo be number one. But shouldn't I try to be my best?" she asked. Topher sighed, unsure of how to answer such a confusing question, but Whiskey had now closed her eyes and it seemed that she had been talking more to herself than him.

He reached out to hold her hand, sighing as he felt her slim, warm fingers close around his own. He knew how wrong this was, yet only when he looked down and saw her smiling faintly at him, did he realize how dangerous this developing relationship could become.

Topher had sat with Whiskey for as long as he could. But, after only ten minutes of sitting beside her, he had been requested in Adelle's office. So he had reluctantly left Whiskey in the care of the assistant. Even though he had left the room, Whiskey's distorted face stayed at the forefront of his mind and her scars were forever etched into his memory.

Adelle's office always made Topher uncomfortable; or maybe it was just Adelle's herself. She was an imposing woman and her mood could change from austere and cold one minute to maternal and caring the next. Sometimes he preferred her in her stern moods, when she was in a good mood she reminded him a bit too much of his mother.

Sitting in an uncomfortable chair in Adelle's office, Topher had an ominous feeling about what was to come. Surely he wouldn't be fired. After all, Alpha's composite event was hardly his fault. As he looked out of the office windows, watching the sun set behind the high rise city buildings, Topher wondered what would happen to Whiskey. Surely she wouldn't be sent to the attic. After all, she hadn't done anything wrong and she wasn't dangerous. Then again, she couldn't remain a doll or even be imprinted with her original personality with her face as scarred as it was.

Topher's musing was interrupted by Adelle entering the office, her high heels clicking sharply on the polished floor. She sat down in a chair opposite Topher. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Adelle finally spoke, her professional tone telling Topher that, as he'd expected, this meeting was serious business.

"We have lost many actives and members of staff today. Not to mention that we now have a homicidal active on the loose."

"I thought the security team caught him." Topher replied, his voice wavering and his face blanching at the thought that Alpha could still be on the loose.

"Unfortunately his fighting skills, stealth and genius computer skills were too much for our security team to handle. Never the less we will most definitely be upgrading our security in light of this morning's events. But that is not what I called you here to talk about. I wanted to speak to you about Whiskey." At the sound of Whiskey's name Topher grimaced involuntarily. He quickly forced an impassive look onto his face. He knew he had to be careful of showing his emotions around Adelle.

"Today we also lost Dr Saunders, as I am sure you are aware." Topher nodded silently. He had seen Dr Saunders' body being taken away, his blood dripping from his wounds and onto the floor, leaving behind a trail as he left the dollhouse for the last time. The memory was fresh and gruesome enough to make his stomach churn.

"This means that we are in need of a new house doctor, as none of the assistant trainees are well enough qualified to take over the position," Adelle continued. For a sudden moment Topher thought Adelle was going to ask him to become the new doctor. But that was ridiculous as he had no where near enough medical training.

Then Topher realized where the conversation was leading.

"Whiskey," he croaked. Then he cleared his throat and tried again. "You want me to imprint Whiskey as a doctor?"

"Yes," Adelle replied calmly, "I think that is appropriate considering that she can no longer be an active. Don't you?" Topher nodded uncertainly, he wasn't really sure how he felt about anything at the moment, if he were any more emotionally unstable he would probably be a puddle of Topher flavored ooze.

"This won't be a regular imprint though," Adelle continued, "Whiskey's imprint will have to be permanent. Which means it will have to be much more detailed and, obviously, she will have to have an intimate knowledge of the dollhouse." Topher nodded silently again.

Adelle turned back to her computer and Topher took that as his cue to leave. As he stood and walked towards the door, Adelle spoke again.

"Topher," she called over her shoulder, without turning around to face him, "After you've done that could you please send me Alpha's imprint records."


	6. Chapter 6: Designing

CHAPTER 6 - Designing

Topher walked passed Whiskey on his way back to his office. She was sitting on one of the couches outside the doctor's office, reading a book. Her scars were still red raw and the stitching was clearly visible. As he passed she looked up, caught his eye and greeted him in the same way all the dolls did.

"Good day." Topher couldn't bear to look at her scarred face, his mind full of memories of what had happened to her and thoughts of what he had to do.

"Hello, Whiskey." He replied softly, his voice cracking as he said her name. As he made to walk away Whiskey stood and placed her palm on his chest, over his heart. It was strange for an active to touch another person while in their doll state, especially in such an intimate way. As they stood there, Topher looked down into Whiskey's eyes, still red from crying in pain.

There he saw complete and utter trust. He couldn't bear to see that look in her eyes when he knew that he was going to have to imprint her, turn her into a different person. He felt tears forming in his eyes, which was strange because he rarely cried, and he gently took her hand and moved it away. Then he gave her a weak smile before walking away.

As he made his way to the staircase that led up to his office he was greeted by many other dolls, all of them calm, with no memory of the bloody massacre they had witnessed earlier that morning. They all told him that they tried to be their best, and looking at then Topher thought they couldn't be any better, no matter how hard they tried. They were their best. Unlike Whiskey, who would never be her best again.

When Topher reached his office he looked down to the main floor, searching for Whiskey, and he saw her still sitting on the couch with her book. Just as he was about to turn away, Whiskey looked up and gazed directly at him. Although she was down on the main floor, Whiskey's eyes seemed to look deep inside him. The skin on Topher's chest burned in the exact place where Whiskey's hand had been. Tearing his eyes away from hers, Topher turned back to his desk.

Topher sat down and woke up his computer which had gone to sleep while he had been away. He opened a blank imprint and began to work, designing a new person for Whiskey to be. He took Dr Saunders' medical skills and used them as a basis, but then he hit a block. What should her name be?

He decided it would be best if he kept Saunders as her last name, as it would be easier to program the other dolls to recognize her as the new doctor if elements of her were the same as the old Dr Saunders. For her first name he decided on Claire. He'd never met anyone named Claire before, so he thought giving her a name which didn't inspire any memories would help him design her as a truly unique, original person. Then Topher began to create her past.

Topher worked for twelve straight hours, only getting up once to go to the bathroom and grab a bottle of water from his fridge on the way back. Sleep and hunger were put on hold as he designed the life and personality of Claire Saunders. When he finished the imprint he triple checked his work before adding some final touches.

He gave her a fear of crowds and open spaces, hoping that this would keep her from leaving the dollhouse. He told himself that he did this so that they wouldn't have to find another doctor if she left, but he secretly knew that it because of something else; a desperate need for her to stay in the dollhouse, to protect her from the world.

Then he made her distrust the dollhouse, made her not sure if she truly supported the cause she was working for. He gave her a motherly love for the actives so that she would want to look after them and so she would enjoy her work. He made her question his ideas so that she would be able to correct any mistakes he made.

Finally he tweaked her basic senses, making it so she would hate the way he smelled, the scent of the soap he always used. It was precaution so that, no matter what he subconsciously wanted, they could never be close. He finally admitted to himself that he wouldn't be able to withstand the possibility of having a relationship with her, even just a friendly one. He made his very scent disgust her so that they would never be friends; never be anything more than just colleagues.


	7. Chapter 7: Creating

CHAPTER 7 - Creating

It was late by the time Whiskey's handler and Adelle brought her up to the imprinting room. The other actives were all safely asleep in their secure pods and security teams were still patrolling on rotation, just in case Alpha decided to return to the dollhouse. Even though he knew he was well protected, Topher couldn't help but look over his shoulder every now and again, just to check that Alpha wasn't hiding in the shadows.

For once he wished that he had a home away from the dollhouse, that Alpha didn't know about, where he could be safe. But all he had was his makeshift home in the server room. No more than a mattress bed and a pile of clothes. He spend most of his time in his office anyway. There were always actives to be imprinted and wiped and engagements to be monitored.

Whiskey sat down in the chair and gazed up at Topher with expressionless eyes as he inserted the Claire Saunders wedge into the chair. He and Adelle had decided that instead of waking up in the chair after the imprint, Claire should wake up in the doctor's office. It would be too confusing for her if she woke up in the chair and could inspire questions that might unravel the imprint.

Whiskey's handler was only going to be present for this last imprint and to help move Claire to her office after she had been imprinted. After that he would probably become the handler for one of the new actives that were admitted occasionally. Topher wondered if it was hard for him to see his active so scarred as a result of Alpha's rage. Did he care for Whiskey as a daughter, the way Boyd did with Echo, or did he not really care.

Topher pressed the button to activate the chair and he watched in silence as Whiskey was lowered down. The familiar purple light glowed, casting shadows across Whiskey's face, illuminating her scars so that they stood out in harsh relief. She arched her back in silent pain as the actives always did, though her eyes remained tightly closed.

Her whole body shuddered as memories of her family, school life, pets and first boyfriend were poured into her head, embellished with minute details which would ensure that she never questioned her existence. It would be a disaster if she found out she was a doll. No human would be able to cope with the knowledge that they were effectively not real. That the body they lived in wasn't theirs and actually belonged to someone else, who would one day get it back.

Working at the dollhouse could be quite disorienting. Topher knew the technology existed that could mean that even he could be a doll. Perhaps his whole life was a construct made by some other programmer. When Topher fell into one of his self-questioning phases he would phone his family. They were always seemed surprised but pleased to hear from him. They thought he was working at a research station in the arctic where there was no phone reception or internet. After talking to his parents Topher would feel reassured that he really was himself.

After what seemed to be forever, but Topher knew was actually only two or three minutes, the purple light faded and the chair raised Whiskey's unconscious body. Claire's unconscious body. He had to get used to her new name now, because he couldn't afford to slip up. Adelle nodded serenely and left the room, leaving Whiskey's handler and Topher to transport Claire's unconscious body to her office.

The trip down the stairs to the main floor was a long one, with Claire's feet dragging on the ground all the way. Every time her feet hit a stair with a loud thunk, Topher wished he didn't have to do this. There was no time for hesitation though, the actives didn't stay unconscious for long after they were imprinted and they didn't have much time left before Claire woke up.

Finally they reached the doctor's office and Whiskey's handler held the door open while Topher hauled Claire inside and sat her down in her desk chair. Whiskey's handler gave her a faint smile before he left, leaving Topher alone with her. He slowly reached out and stroked Claire's cheek with trembling fingertips, being careful not to wake her as he traced the scar that led down the side of her face. He knew this was the last time he would be able to touch her so intimately. When she woke up, she would be a different person.


	8. Chapter 8: Reality

CHAPTER 8 - Reality

The next morning a loud knock woke Topher from his sleep with a start. For a moment he was totally disoriented. Had he fallen asleep? He almost laughed aloud at the irony of that thought. Rubbing sleep from his eyes and straightening his shirt his turned to see who had come up to his office.

"You know Topher, sleeping at your desk will just hurt your neck." Whiskey stood in the doorway. No, not Whiskey. Claire. He had to remember to call her Claire now.

"Oh. Hi Claire. How are you?" he began, smiling almost manically. He quickly stopped talking, silenced by the strange look she was giving him. He panicked. Were they not on first name terms? He couldn't remember what he had programmed so he just sat staring at Claire, not sure what to say.

"Why are you being so strange today?" she asked. Confusion evident in her expression, her scars curling as they followed the curves of her face.

"Me? Topher? Weird? Never!" Topher stuttered. His outburst hardly helped the situation at all and Topher silently berated himself for being so unprepared to see Claire for the first time.

Claire shook her head slightly and walked over to him, handing him some of the Actives' medical files.

"Now. I've checked Oscar over, but after he dislocated his shoulder on his last engagement I think he should have a few weeks off." Topher noticed that Claire held her breath slightly when she was near him and he felt a strange sense of pride in knowing that he had done that by making her hate the way he smelled.

Claire must have noticed his vacant, dazed smile.

"Topher are you listening? Honestly, sometimes I wonder why I even bother talking to you. You don't care about the actives at all!" Claire raged as she dumped the files onto Topher's lap and stormed out of the room.

"No! Claire! Wait!" Topher stood and tried follow her but the stack of files fell out of his lap and onto the floor. Pictures of actives, medical records and reports scattered all over his office floor.

"Great job Topher, just great." he muttered to himself as he began to gather up the sea of papers.

To Topher's surprise Claire came back into the office. By her look of resignation Topher knew that she didn't really want to come back. Maybe she felt guilty for leaving him with the papers scattered everywhere.

"I'm sorry Topher. I've just been so on edge edge lately."

"Probably because of Alpha," Topher replied. Although Claire no longer remembered being Whiskey, Topher had been forced to create memories of Alpha's massacre for her. After all, everyone was still talking about the event and he had to provide an explanation for her scars.

"Yes, Alpha." Claire seemed to be off in a world of her own, possibly remembering how she had got her scars.

"Anyway I thought I'd better come back and help you pick up these files." Topher's conscience twinged but he tried not to show it. If Claire knew what she had been and what he had done, she wouldn't be being anywhere near as nice to him.

The next few minutes were spent in silence as they picked up the papers. There was no accidental hand touching or head bumping which always seemed to happen in the movies during these sorts of scenes. Topher wasn't sure if he was disappointed or glad. Glad, he told himself. Hand touching would just lead to kissing and then other touching and he really shouldn't be thinking about this at all. He sighed deeply. Why couldn't he keep his mind off her?

By the time they had cleared all the papers off the floor and organized them in their correct folders Echo had come back from an engagement. She had been accompanying a famous yet single writer to the launch of his most recent book. It had been an easy engagement.

Most of the more strenuous engagements had been postponed for a few weeks, just in case any of the actives had been deeply affected by the massacre. The last thing anyone wanted was another Alpha. So as an extra precaution Adelle had insisted on personally overseeing every active's post-engagement wipes for the next week. Just to provide an extra pair of eyes, and a strictly observant pair at that. If anything was wrong with an active, she was certain that she would notice.

Claire decided that she would stay to watch Echo being wiped before taking her down to her office for the standard post-engagement examination. As Echo was wiped Claire watched Echo and Topher watched Claire. Although her face was expressionless, Topher wondered if she had any memory, no matter how dim and blurred, of

being a doll. After all, no one was really sure how completely a person's memory could be wiped.

"Did I fall asleep?" Echo asked. Topher suddenly remembered that she there.

"Yes. No, I mean for a little while." He had been so lost in thought, staring at Claire, that he had forgotten the post-imprint script. That was a first for him.

"Shall I go now?"

"If you like," Topher glanced over at Claire, desperately hoping that she hadn't noticed him staring at her blatantly.

Luckily for him, Claire hadn't noticed. But Adelle had.


	9. Chapter 9: Observations

CHAPTER 9 - Observations

Adelle had noticed that Topher had been acting strangely. Of course that was to be expected to some extent. Everyone had been feeling a bit out of sorts since the Alpha incident. In Adelle's case she had become even more wary and suspicious of Echo, which was reasonable in her mind, as Echo had been the trigger for Alpha's attack.

How had she not noticed Alpha's growing obsession with Echo? She secretly knew that she had noticed that the pair were close. As close as two dolls could be. But their closeness had actually interested her, she was curious to see the dolls developing and changing. So long as they didn't prove dangerous for the dollhouse. Now she knew that dolls acting strangely could only lead to disaster. She would be more careful next time. This unfortunate technological anomaly had her in enough trouble with the higher-ups at Rossum already.

Adelle didn't really spend much time with Topher, but she felt an almost motherly concern for the young man and she felt slightly sorry for him. She wondered what had truly made him decide to work at the dollhouse, away from any family and friends that he had. He had told her that it had been his life dream to work with technology like they had at the dollhouse; but Adelle suspected there was more to his decision than that. In her opinion Topher spent too much time in his office. He needed to spend some time away from his computers, the dolls and the chair. But realistically, as the head programmer, he couldn't be spared for even a day.

Topher was glad that Claire was the house doctor and not one of his tech staff. That meant that he didn't really see her that often; which was good in his opinion. When she was around he could feel himself tense up and his brain just seemed to stop working. The technological jargon he normally spouted in response to any question about the imprinting process vanished from his head and when she asked a question he had to scramble for an answer. Mostly, when she was around, he had no control.

Although she had been relatively nice to him for the last few days; cordially working with him on preparing Echo both physically and mentally for her next engagement, he had still felt an underlying sense of revulsion. Which he told himself was to be expected. He had programmed her to find him repulsive on an instinctual level. The knowledge that her revulsion was a result of his programming didn't really soothe the sting though. He guessed he should just be content with the fact that his programming was excellent. No need to get upset about the way she felt about him because he already knew how she felt, how she would feel and how she would react. She was predictable as far as he was concerned.

Claire's scars still pained her and she often found herself being attracted to the mirror in her office where she would trace the scars that criss-crossed her face. It wasn't that she was vain, or that she worried about how her scars affected her looks; it was because when she walked past a reflective surface she often didn't recognize herself. There was always a moment when she would wonder: Who is that? Before she realized that it was her, looking back at her from behind a new, unrecognizable face.

Claire knew that her scars weren't that bad and that she wasn't truly unrecognizable. They were just such a new addition to her features but they still felt strange, like getting braces on or having a different hair cut. She wondered how long the feeling would last. The feeling of not belonging in her body. She wished she had some pictures of herself before she got her scars, but she had left them behind when she had come to work at the dollhouse, not wanting to be reminded of the outside world that she was no longer a part of.

Echo's file was open on the computer screen in front of her. She was worried about Echo because, in her opinion, she was too popular for her own good. The number one doll. Claire felt an unexpected pang of jealousy. How could she feel jealous of a doll? She reasoned that she wasn't jealous of Echo's status as number one doll. Who would want to be a doll, let alone number one? She was jealous of Echo's popularity. People wanted her. Claire reckoned that if she upped and disappeared one day no one would notice or care except to complain about the lack of a doctor.

In her heart, Claire knew that leaving the dollhouse was impossible. She was terrified of open spaces and crowds; fears which left her unable to function in the outside world. She'd always had those phobias and at times during her school life they had become so impossible to cope with that she had been home schooled for her final three years. As a young child she hadn't really had any close friends because playing in the park and going to birthday parties often ended in panic attacks and tears. She belonged here at the dollhouse, where she could work efficiently, where she could help the actives.

Although she worked there, ideas and morals the dollhouse rested on truly disgusted her. She could not think of anything more horrifying than willing human slaves. What kind of person could sell themselves into mindless slavery in order to escape their life, get a reduced prison sentence or to just make everything go away? If it weren't for the fact that she was helping the actives and that she worried how they would fare without her, she liked to think that she would have the willpower to leave. But she felt right here and she knew that this was where she belonged.


	10. Chapter 10: Scars

CHAPTER 10 - Scars

Topher strode into Claire Saunders' office, ready to update her on Victor's new engagement request and discuss the imprint with her.

"Hey Doc,' he called cheerfully, although he knew that Claire would object to the nickname. To his surprise, Claire was nowhere to be found, which was strange because, like Topher, she spent most of her time in her office, examining actives or writing reports.

"Doc? Dr Saunders? Claire?" Topher called as he made his way toward the back of the office, between the tall shelves stacked with actives' files.

He found her at the back of the office, looking at herself in the mirror. She was tracing her scars across her face with her fingertips, obviously deep in thought. Most of the time, around other people, Claire seemed to pretend that her scars didn't exist, though Topher knew that she was always aware of them. He did want to intrude on her moment, mostly because he knew that Claire's embarrassment over being found actually looking at her scars would, undoubtedly, turn to anger and be taken out on him.

He watched as her fingers brushed the scar that split the corner of her mouth from nose to chin. Over the weeks her scars had gradually become less noticeable and they no longer stood out blood red from her pale skin. Obviously Claire could not see Topher's reflection in the mirror because she did not turn around and only sighed to herself. She pushed her wavy, chestnut hair behind her left ear, exposing the tip of the scar that bisected her forehead. She followed that scar with her fingers until she reached her hairline, before closing her eyes, unwilling to look at herself any longer.

Topher wished he could comfort her, but he knew that she would any of his advances and he didn't want to jeopardize the strained but relatively cordial relationship that they had. He longed to tell her that her scars didn't matter; that she was beautiful. But her knew that she would only take his comments as sarcasm, and shy further away. If only she weren't so adverse to his attempts to befriend her. But, then again, wasn't that the point of his programming? To distance himself from her?

He had often tried to convince himself that he felt no differently about Whiskey than he felt about the other dolls. But he couldn't convince himself that he felt nothing for Claire Saunders. Although they were just friends, and their friendship was a tenuous one at that, he wished it could become something more, even though he knew she didn't feel the same way.

Sometimes, on rare occasions when she wasn't truly annoyed by him, she would give him a slight smile. A response to a joke or a quick meeting glances across the room. Her mouth would curve up at the sides, twisting her scars. Some people would have found the sight grotesque, but Topher thought she looked beautiful. What he wouldn't give to be able to press his lips to hers and caress that scar that split them with his tongue. He wanted to reach out and trace her scars with his fingertips. Not in the way she did, ashamed and disgusted, but gently and lovingly. He longed to touch her, something other than an accidental brush as she walked past. Whoa! His thoughts were getting a bit intense there and he willed his mind to stop wandering down that dangerous alley. Mental roadblock there, that was one road he would not be traveling down any time in his future.

Claire opened her eyes and immediately winced at the sight of her reflection. Then she turned. Topher started. If she turned around and found him there, she would know that he had been watching her. But it was too late to back away without being noticed, so Topher turned to one of the shelves nearby and pretended he was looking for a file. Claire bent to pick up the files she had placed on the chair beside her before she turned around and began heading towards her desk.

"Topher? What are you doing here?" She stared at him confusedly; her gaze conveying more than a hint of surprise and shame as well as a touch of a suspicious glare.

"Hello, Doc. I didn't see you there" Claire frowned at the nickname.

"What do you want Topher? Or have you just come down here to annoy me? I have reports to write you know."

"Oh, yes. I just wanted to talk to you about Victor's new engagement. I was just looking for his file." Topher was pretty pleased with his on the spot excuse for being in the back of her office where the archives were.

"Victor. I forgot you were coming to talk to me about him. You do know that you're in entirely the wrong section of the stacks? His file's down the front." Topher grimaced internally, maybe his excuse wasn't so solid after all.

"Really? I forgot." He tried to act confused, but he wasn't sure if he could pull this off.

Claire led Topher back to the front of her office. Although the awkward conversation about his presence at the back of her office was over, Topher could tell that she was still suspicious. He knew that she was secretly wondering if he had seen her looking at her scars in the mirror.

"So about Victor." She began, before opening his file diving into medical jargon that Topher could only assume was related to Victor and his imprint. Topher often went on lengthy rants about the imprinting technology and the actives but, naturally, he assumed that his rants were interesting and engaging. He hardly understood what Claire was on about and really he only cared about getting her to sign off on Victor's engagement.

"So I think I can sign off on that engagement." She finally concluded and Topher let out an undetectable sigh of relief.

"Thanks Doc." He replied, as he turned to leave, ignoring her obvious grimace in response to his blatant refusal to drop the nickname.

He had just reached the doorway when.

"Topher." Claire called timidly after him. He spun around on his heel and walked back into the room.

"What's up Doc?" He replied playfully with a grin. His grin soon faded though as he took in the serious and worried expression on her face.

"Dr Saunders? What's wrong?" His concern for her even shocked him a little. But Claire didn't seem to notice his change in demeanor as she was preoccupied with planning her next sentence.

"Before… When you were in the stacks… You didn't… See me there? Right?" She asked haltingly. Topher wasn't sure whether to lie or not. Lying would certainly get him out of this situation, but if Claire somehow found out that he had lied, his life wouldn't be worth living.

"Um… No… I didn't see you." He lied. After all, wasn't their relationship one big lie? Wasn't her life just one big lie?

**Note:**

**Please review! I have already written the next two chapters but I won't update unless I get at least five reviews... That's right, you've made me resort to blackmail. No, really, I just want to know what you think :) It would also be nice to know if people are actually reading it… I'm also open to suggestions for what you want to happen in future chapters… Plus in the next chapter this story will earn its M rating. If that's not incentive then I don't know what is…**


	11. Chapter 11: Dreams

CHAPTER 11 - Dreams

Claire found that she didn't worry about her scars when she was with Topher. Unlike most people his eyes didn't linger for a fraction too long when looking at her face and he never brought them up either. If it weren't for the fact that she couldn't stand him she'd probably spend more time with him. She couldn't put her finger on exactly why she didn't like Topher but when he was close she felt her instincts telling her to move away. Most times she would move away; subtly disguising her movement with a distracting arm movement or a cough. Other times she would force herself to stand next to him for as long as she could before her revulsion became to much to bear.

She admitted that he could be annoying and conceited at times. Well, most of the time. But she didn't understand why she couldn't stand to be near him. He hadn't done anything to her other that she could reason meriting the nausea she felt when she was around him. Topher was good looking, by most standards, and she knew that he could be kind. Claire had seen him with the actives, checking up on them and she'd understood that he wasn't as self centered as she'd first thought.

They were quite similar, the two of them. They both hardly ever left the dollhouse. She stayed in her office most of the time, treating actives; and he stayed in his office, imprinting dolls. She slept in the small quarters that joined her office and he slept in his makeshift bedroom in the server room. Claire had always wondered where Topher slept because he didn't have living quarters like she did, yet he never seemed to leave the dollhouse; so she reasoned that he didn't have a house to go home to.

One night, her curiosity overcoming her aversion to him, she waited while he worked in his office. Finally, at around three in the morning, he walked away down the maintenance passage leading out of the office. Claire followed quietly and peered around the corner into the server room which Topher had entered. Luckily, Topher had his back to the door and didn't notice her head peaking around the doorframe. She saw the clothes hanging from the grating on the ceiling and the make shift bed which was really just a cot. As Claire turned to leave, her curiosity sated, Topher turned slightly. Claire froze in fear, afraid that if she tried to leave now her would hear her. So she stood still and desperately prayed that he wouldn't turn around and see her. Thankfully he had only been moving to pick up a pair of sweat pants which he threw onto the bed. Then he moved his hands to the hem of his shirt and pulled it off over his head in one swift motion.

Suddenly Claire no longer had any interest in leaving. She'd always dully noticed that Topher was good looking but she could never have imagined how he looked without a shirt. As he bent to put his shirt on a pile of dirty clothes his muscles rippled with unexpected, hidden strength. The dim light accentuated his slender form and Claire felt her heart rate speed up as he reached up and ruffled his hair unconsciously. She felt her body heat up and her cheeks redden as she admired his body while he stretched, raising his arms up. Claire watched him as he moved around the room, getting ready for bed. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen a man half naked and the reaction to seeing Topher like this was surprisingly different to the revulsion she always felt around him. She felt a knot of longing form in her stomach and she felt a flood of heat through her body.

Claire wondered why she suddenly felt this way when all she'd felt for Topher was disgust. She was struck with a feeling of self loathing at the way her body had reacted to seeing Topher shirtless. And only shirtless none the less. It wasn't like he was naked in the shower or anything. With steam rising around him and his hands running through his wet hair. What? No. No thinking about that. Think about something else, anything else. Claire took a deep breath to steady her traitorous body and breathed in Topher's hideous scent. That was enough to straighten out her mind and she spun around quietly and padded back down the corridor towards the office.

When Claire had disappeared back down the maintenance passage Topher smiled to himself. He'd known she was watching and for some reason he'd felt like teasing her a little by pretending he didn't know she was there. With a curious smugness, he pictured her expression when he'd taken off his shirt. He'd been able to feel her inquisitive, appreciative eyes on his body and it had been extremely arousing. He could just imagine her hands running over his chest and tangling in his hair while she kissed him, as she had unknowingly done so many months ago when she was an active imprinted as a hooker. He felt all his blood rush from his head down to an area significantly lower. He half wished that she'd come into his room. Then they could have both remedied the unresolved tension that he felt and was sure she felt too.

Topher lay down on his bed a made himself comfortable; though he suspected that making the effort was all for nothing because he had hardly slept lately. He knew why. He wasn't overly stressed or worried and Adelle hadn't even been pressuring him as much as usual. Still every night he lay awake in bed, unable to sleep, because of her. He couldn't get Claire out of his heat and his conscience berated him for it constantly. It only got worse when he tried to clear his mind and go to sleep.

Topher shivered and covered himself with the thin bed sheet. He'd meant to bring a blanket in but he always forgot and he didn't really see the point if he wasn't going to be able to sleep anyway. If Claire was here then they could warm each other. And Topher wasn't just thinking of the warmth that came from lying next to another person. He was thinking about something significantly more… intimate. Don't think that, he scolded himself. He knew that thoughts like those would never lead to anything because he had to keep his distance from Claire. Both emotionally and physically.

Then again, thoughts couldn't hurt could they? It wasn't like she knew what he was thinking, he reasoned as he closed his eyes and, to his surprise and relief, drifted off to sleep. Falling asleep hardly helped the matter though, because his unresolved desires translated eerily into his dream world.

In his dream, instead of standing in the doorway, Claire came into the room. She walked over to him, her eyes darkening with passion as she cast her gaze over his body.

"Topher," she moaned in a husky voice, "I need you." Somewhere, deep inside his mind, Topher knew that this was a dream. Claire would never really say anything like that. But the moral, righteous Topher, who would most definitely push her away, was no longer in control. Topher's impulsive side was driving and he felt himself harden at the sound of her voice, thick with desire.

Claire stopped walking when she was only one a few centimeters away from Topher, her pouting lips unbearably close to his. All he had to do was lean in. So he did. Her lips were warm and the kiss was rough, her tongue pushing against his lips, demanding entrance.

"This is so wrong." Topher's moral self groaned silently as his dream body pulled Claire closer. He moved to take off her doctor's coat but she beat him to it, tugging it from her body and dropping it on the floor by her feet. Topher ran his hands up and down her sides before he slid the straps of her modest, black dress down over her shoulders. Then he unzipped the back and let it fall to the floor without breaking the kiss, smiling at the sound of her desperate moan. She ran her hands from his shoulders, over his torso and down to the waistband of his jeans, which were becoming uncomfortably tight.

Claire looked up at him with a devious look dancing in her eyes as she stood before him in only her underwear. Topher only had a moment to admire her almost naked body before she pressed her hips forcefully against his, causing him to groan. Then she leaned forward and kissed him again, her tongue dancing in Topher's mouth driving him mad. He wasn't sure how much more he could take before he snapped and ripped both of their clothes off.

"Claire," he gasped, pleadingly, as he pulled out of the kiss. Claire looked up at him and looked him straight in the eyes as she undid the button and fly of his jeans, smiling as he sighed in relief.

If this had been anything but a dream, Topher would have pushed Claire away and fled as far from her a possible. But it was only a dream, so he allowed her to push him down onto the cot and straddle him. She ground down against him and he felt her heat through the thin layers of fabric separating their bodies. The sensation was overwhelming and he squeezed his eyes shut, his hands fisting in the sheets then moving to rest on her hips. Topher looked up at Claire, with her messy hair and flushed cheeks and, with a possessive growl so unlike him, he flipped them over so that he was supporting himself above her on his forearms. Claire made use of the new position to rid both of them of their underwear so that they could finally have full skin-to-skin contact.

Topher lowered his hips to meet hers, both of them shuddering with tension and arousal. He pushed inside her and she gasped, her eyelids fluttering. They stayed still for a few moments, adjusting to the overpowering sensation of pure pleasure. Then Claire began to rock her hips up against Topher's and they moved together, setting an erratic pace. For the next few minutes the only sounds that could be heard were their harsh breathing and the creaking of the cot springs. The cot was meant for one person sleeping peacefully, not two people doing this. Topher felt himself approaching his climax, and Claire's almost-pained expression told him that she approaching hers too. He increased the speed of his thrusts.

"Topher!" she yelled out, "Topher!"

"You need to get out here now!" Topher sat up with a start. Where was he? What was going on? After a moment of confusion Topher realized that, to his disappointment, he was alone in his bed and Claire was most definitely not there. He wondered why he could still hear her voice calling out his name, before he realized that she was calling from out in his office. He also realized that she was not calling his name in the throes passion, but rather in urgency and annoyance. Sighing, Topher stood up and pulled on a top and jeans before making his way down the hallway to his office. The fact that he hadn't been sleeping recently was hardly remedied by being woken up by shouts when he had finally managed to sleep for a few hours. Along his way down the corridor he forcefully reminded himself that the dream was just that; a dream. Nothing could ever come it. He had to stay away from Claire.


	12. Chapter 12: Insomnia

CHAPTER 12 - Insomnia

Claire stood in the imprinting room with Boyd hovering behind her as she examined Echo's arm, which she suspected was badly broken. Echo had been on an engagement with a police taskforce trying to uncover a drug smuggling operation and when their suspects had fled, Echo had pursued them. Despite her having been imprinted with ninja-like martial arts skills, the ensuing fight had left her with her bad break and her arm was bent at an unnatural angle.

Echo's imprint was a bold, courageous one and, although Claire knew that Echo had to be in pain, she hardly winced as Claire inspected her arm. Although Echo was calm, Boyd was pacing back and forth across the room, his fatherly concern more than evident.

"Is she going to be ok?" He asked Claire worriedly.

"She'll be fine once I've set her arm; but she'll probably have to be in a cast for around six weeks. Though, knowing Adelle, she'll pull some strings and get her an advanced surgery, so maybe only three weeks." Claire replied, hoping that her answer would placate the anxious handler. "The only question is whether we should treat her or wipe her first," Claire continued.

"Well, if Topher's going to take much longer to get out here then maybe we should treat her first." Boyd answered, glancing towards the door, no doubt wishing that Topher would hurry up and wipe Echo so that they could treat her arm.

"I've already called him twice," Claire told him, exasperatedly, "I'll try one last time, but he might be sleeping."

"I thought he was supposed to be here, ready to wipe actives coming back from engagements," Boyd said, his concern for Echo transforming into frustrated anger, which he was ready to take out on the nearest victim. Although Claire mostly agreed with Boyd, she had to stifle the stream of excuses that came to mind which would defend Topher. Why would she even want to defend him? She pushed the thoughts down and ducked into the office to call out to Topher again.

"You need to get out here now!"

Claire was about to give up and tell Echo and Boyd to come down to her office when Topher walked into the office. He was wearing a crumpled pair of jeans and a t-shirt, unlike his usual shirt and sweater-vest combination, and his hair was a wild untamed mess; the sure signs that he had been asleep. Claire watched as he rubbed his eyes tiredly and she wondered why he didn't dress like this more often. She was sure that she wasn't the only one who found those sweater-vests a total turn off.

"Doc?" Topher asked, interrupting Claire's mental sidetrack about Topher's clothes, "What's wrong?"

"Oh, Echo just got back from her engagement with a broken arm and I need you to wipe her as soon as possible so that I can treat it," Claire replied as she turned back to the imprinting room, uncomfortably aware that she had been staring at Topher and his bed-hair for a little to long.

As soon as Topher and Claire walked into the imprinting room, Boyd attacked Topher.

"Where have you been? What would have happened if something had gone really wrong? Something worse than this. Would you have just slept while… I don't know… Echo had a seizure or something?" Boyd shouted. Claire tried to convince herself that she agreed with him, that Topher had been neglecting his duty as programmer by sleeping on shift; but the way Topher just stood and let Boyd yell at him made her feel slightly sorry for the still drowsy man.

"Nice to see you too man-friend," Topher replied sarcastically before turning to Echo and gesturing to the chair. "Echo, would you like a treatment?" he asked in the calming, almost hypnotic voice he used on the dolls. That voice creeped Claire out and she often marveled at the way Topher's demeanor would totally change when he talked to the dolls. He would always become serene and convincing, like an assistant in a doctor's waiting room, assuring you that you would be seen in just a moment.

Echo sat down in the chair, wincing slightly as she laid her arms down on the arm rests. Topher pressed a few buttons on one of the consoles and then flicked a switch on the chair interface which made the chair lower Echo into a reclining position. Then the familiar purple-blue light flooded the room and Echo twitched slightly in the chair as all the memories from her engagement were wiped away. Claire watched Topher as he stared at Echo blankly. He looked exhausted, the light from the chair only accentuated the bags under his eyes and he looked emotionally drained without his typical enigmatic grin.

Boyd cleared his throat and Claire looked up in a panic, thinking that she had been caught staring at Topher; at Topher of all people. But Boyd's pointed expression was directed at Topher who had failed to notice that Echo's wipe was complete.

"Topher," she muttered and nudged him with her elbow. He glanced at her confusedly before realizing what was going on.

"Hello, Echo." He said quickly.

"Did I fall asleep?" Echo replied in the monotone that all of the actives used.

"For a little while," Topher replied, as per the post-wipe script.

"Shall I go now?" Echo inquired.

"If you like," Topher said, with a little less enthusiasm that usual. This seemed strange to Claire because Topher was very finicky about the post-wipe script and she had often heard him criticize his assistant Ivy for saying it without the right tone of voice.

There wasn't time for her to worry about Topher though, and she told herself that she shouldn't be worrying about him anyway; she hated him. At least she thought she did. She wasn't so sure about that lately as she had found that she actually enjoyed spending time with Topher, arguing about imprints and discussing the actives; so long as she didn't get close enough to smell his repulsive scent. Claire wasn't entirely sure what that scent was, shampoo? Cologne? Topher didn't really seem like a cologne sort of guy to her though. Not that it mattered. Not that any of this mattered. She was against everything he stood for, she hated him and that was that. Still, she wanted to check he was okay. After all, she reasoned, it wouldn't be good for the head programmer to collapse from sleep deprivation; and she was the house doctor, making sure everyone was okay was part of her job.

"Go on Echo. Boyd. You go down to my office, I'll be there in a minute to fix your arm," Claire said, hoping that they would leave so that she could have a word with Topher.

"Why," Boyd asked bemusedly, "Where are you going?"

"I'm just going to stay here for a bit. I want to check some of Echo's stats from the engagement so I know what to look for when I do her physical. I don't want to have to come back up here and double check the file." She replied. This explanation didn't quite seem to fool Boyd; but he just gave her a slight frown and left.

When Claire had watched Boyd and Echo walk down the stairs to the main floor she turned to Topher who was still gazing blankly at the chair.

"Topher?" she called softly. He jerked, surprised by her voice and looked up at her with blood shot eyes. "Topher are you okay?" she asked.

"Me?" he replied with a yawn, "I'm fine, perfect as can be. Why, Doc?"

"You look tired. Have you been sleeping alright?" she inquired, as all pretense that she wasn't worried, flew out the window. Topher looked at her with a puzzled, wary expression.

"I've been sleeping fine," he lied. Claire knew that he was lying, but if he didn't want to talk about it she wasn't going to press him.

"Okay," she replied, a professional, uncaring mask sliding over her features. "Forget I even asked," she murmured as she left for her office. If he didn't want to talk to her, then she had a doll to treat.


	13. Chapter 13: Revelations

CHAPTER 13 – REVELATION

Echo was sitting on the examination bed when Claire entered her office. She was peering curiously at her arm seemingly bemused by the blood. The actives were always like this when they were injured, confused but calm, which made treating them very easy.

"Are you okay Echo?" Claire asked as she walked over to her, passing Boyd who was sitting in a chair he had pulled over to the bed.

"My arm feels strange," Echo replied, "And there is blue on me. What is that?"

"It's just a bruise," Claire assured her, "I'm going to fix it for you, okay?" Echo nodded and held out her arm. Claire reached out to the medical tray beside her and picked up a syringe of anesthetic.

"Echo, I'm going to give you a injection so that it doesn't hurt when I fix your arm," Claire told the impassive active before she pushed the needle into Echo's shoulder. "You might feel a bit strange because of the anesthetic but it will wear off in a little while."

Claire knew that Echo hardly understood or comprehended anything she was telling her, the same as all the other actives. But she still treated all of the actives as real people, reassuring and comforting them as if they were 'normal' patients. After giving Echo the anesthetic, Claire began to work on setting her arm. Although it was a bad break, the bone slid easily back into place and Claire began to dab some ointment onto Echo's impressive bruise.

"The good man is sad," Echo suddenly said. Claire looked up at her in surprise. Usually the actives didn't say much other than simple programmed sentences like 'good day', 'I try to be my best' and 'I like my treatments'. She turned to ask Boyd what he thought, but he had fallen asleep in his chair, his head lolling back.

'What man, Echo?" Claire asked, turning back to the examination bed.

"The funny man," Echo replied, "He is broken." Claire suddenly realized who she was talking about. She almost asked Echo if she meant Topher, but she quickly realized that the actives didn't even know his name. It was worrying that even an active could notice that there was something wrong with Topher.

"What makes you think he's broken?" She asked Echo, keen to hear what the active thought. Claire knew that although they were so detached from the world, the actives sometimes noticed things that most people didn't.

"I watched him. He is not his best. He is sad," Echo replied simply.

"Do you watch him a lot?" Claire asked, concerned that Echo was awake enough to watch someone with any degree of awareness.

"No," Echo replied, "But he watches you." Claire stared at Echo warily. Topher watched her? Topher watched her and she hadn't noticed? She hadn't noticed, but Echo had noticed? An active who didn't know what a bruise was had noticed Topher watching her, when she, a doctor, trained to detect everything, had not noticed. She glanced up at Topher's office, half expecting to see him looking down at her, but he was sitting at his computer, the faint blue light from the screen illuminating his face eerily.

Claire was curious; and Boyd was asleep, so she figured that it couldn't do any harm to ask Echo some more questions while no one was there.

"When you say he watches me…" Claire trailed off, unsure of how to pose her question an active with such a limited understanding of the world. But, to her astonishment, Echo replied.

"When he watches you his mouth does this." Echo curved her mouth into a smile. Topher smiled while watching her? Claire didn't know whether that was nice in a strange sense or just outright weird.

"Well," she said, "Thank you Echo. I'll just bandage your arm and you can go. Try not to touch your arm until we can get a proper cast on it, okay?" Claire bandaged Echo's arm and sent her on her way, watching the active curiously as she left for the pod room where the actives slept.

Even though her last conversation with him hadn't gone very well, Claire wanted to go up and talk to Topher. Her concern for him having increased after hearing Echo's revelation. Unfortunately Boyd was still asleep in his chair. Claire didn't want to disturb him, but she also didn't want to leave him there alone, worried that he would have hysterics if he woke up and she and Echo were both missing. So she scrawled a note for him saying that Echo was fine and had gone to her pod and she left the note on the armrest of his chair. Then she slipped out of the room and made her way towards the staircase leading up to Topher's office.

Topher didn't notice when Claire walked into his office, which was only further evidence of how tired he was. He almost jumped out of his skin when she called his name from across the room and he spun around in his chair to face her.

"Jeez Doc! Don't sneak up on me like that!" he said angrily. "What do you want? Come to ask about my health again?" He knew he was being unfairly mean to Claire, but he really couldn't deal with her when he was this tired, and their conversations almost always ended in arguments.

He'd tried to go back to bed after Claire had left, but no matter how long he lay there he just couldn't fall asleep. So he'd returned to his computer and had been finishing tomorrow's imprint for Lima. It wasn't his best work, but it would do. He was only working on the random filler that he used to make the imprints credible, but this time the filler was less original than in most of his imprints. Scar on right arm; fell out of a tree. Boyfriend; high school jock. Parents; stern and controlling. And on and on and on. Every detail of Lima's fake life as Rosemary Fisher typed into the program.

Now Lima's imprint was forgotten as he faced Claire, a tired scowl etched onto his face. It was hard to be around her even when he wasn't tired and he couldn't help but remember Claire's cameo in the extremely vivid dream he had experienced earlier. She was standing right in front of him. If he stood up they would be face to face, only inches apart. So he stayed sitting.

"I just wanted to check you're okay. I was… Echo was worried about you." Claire replied timidly. Topher could be very sensitive when he was in a bad mood and just one slip, like saying she was worried, could blow the whole conversation.

"You wanted to check if I was okay?" Topher asked incredulously as he waved his arms around wildly. "Just because you're the house doctor doesn't mean you have to follow me around checking up on me every second. I'm fine! You should be worrying about the actives and making sure they're okay; not me! My life is none of your business! Just because we work together doesn't mean you have any right to…" Topher's voice trailed off. Some time during his tirade he had stood up and he was now face to face with Claire. To his surprise she didn't move away and looked him straight in the eyes. Topher's gaze was irreparably drawn to her lips and he wondered how she would react if he just leant forward and kissed her. No! He couldn't think like that when Claire was actually in the room, he scolded himself, and he forced himself to look back up at her eyes.

"Okay," she replied dismissively. "I won't worry about you if that's what you want. I just don't want our head programmer to blow up some poor active's brain because he stayed up to late playing Halo until he was exhausted." Claire knew that she was being harsh and she knew that there was a real reason behind Topher's exhaustion, but he truly refused to tell her so there was no point arguing with him. She tore her eyes away from his, angry, bloodshot ones and forced herself to walk away. She knew that if she stayed, she would comfort him and that would be wrong. Part of her brain insisted that she shouldn't comfort someone she hated, but another part wanted nothing more than to run back and console Topher. That thought scared her beyond belief. She shouldn't feel like that. And from now on she wouldn't. She refused to.

As Claire left, Topher remained standing, his entire body shaking with exhaustion, rage and barely suppressed desire. He clenched violently his hands into fists until his nails broke the skin of his palm and he felt blood, warm and sticky drip from his hand. He wanted nothing more than to tell her what was wrong. Tell her that she was the reason he couldn't sleep, couldn't work, couldn't live. He couldn't live with her around when he couldn't have her. The fact that he knew what she was, yet he still lusted after her, was a horrible yet undeniable reality. Mind over matter, he told himself. He would make himself not care, he insisted as he grabbed some band aids out his desk draw and applied them to the crescent moon cuts on his palm.

Topher slumped suddenly, the tension released from his body as his fatigue, coupled with the exhaustion that came after an argument with Claire finally caught up with him. He stumbled to the server room and fell onto his cot, to tired to even pull the covers over himself before he fell asleep.

Yet again, he dreamed of Claire.

**NOTE: Please review… You know you want to :) **


	14. Chapter 14: Surrender

CHAPTER 14 - SURRENDER

After waking up five times in the night, at six in the morning Topher decided to shelve his pride, anger and other feelings he insisted that he didn't feel and get some sleeping pills from Claire. It was early, but the Dollhouse never slept and he was almost sure that Claire would be awake and in her office, no doubt treating an active or writing one of her detailed reports. He sighed as he looked down at his extremely crumpled clothes, the result of his fitful sleep. He swapped his shirt and searched for another pair of jeans before realizing that he only owned one pair of jeans. The current pair would have to do then, he thought as he walked to his office and then down the stairs to the main floor.

Topher peered in through the glass paneled walls of Claire's office and saw her sitting at her desk. He'd been hoping that she would be treating an active so he could just go in, get his meds and get out of there as fast as possible. So much for that then. He strode into her office and forced his tired features into a smile.

"Hey, Doc!" he greeted her.

"Topher, if you've come down for my report on Juliet's last engagement then you'll have to wait because I'm still working on it. I've been flooded with actives needing to be treated this morning and I just haven't had time." Claire said as she stood up and met Topher's eyes.

"Uh, no. I didn't come down for that," Topher replied, "I just wanted some sleeping pills." Topher could tell from her expression that Claire was barely refraining from saying 'I knew something was wrong'. He had only made this situation more awkward by denying that anything was wrong last night when she'd asked.

Luckily Claire seemed to take pity on him and, without saying a word, she walked over to her medicine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of sleeping pills. As she moved to hand them to Topher the bottle slipped from her hand and the lid popped off, sending pills scattering in all directions.

"I'll grab you a new bottle," She sighed as she bent down to pick up the pills. Topher bent to help her and gasped in pain when his head throbbed excruciatingly, causing a bright flash behind his eyelids. He grimaced and grabbed onto the desk beside him, pulling himself upright.

"Are you alright?" Claire asked him, concernedly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Topher replied as he tried in vain to conceal the pain he was in. His head was pounding and he grasped the desk tighter in an effort to hold himself up as he felt a wave of dizziness wash over him.

"You are not fine," Claire said angrily. "This is all so stupid. You won't tell me what's wrong with you and now you're obviously not okay but you keep on insisting that you're fine! Sit down on the examination bed and don't you dare leave until I'm sure that you're actually fine." They were both shocked by her outburst but when Claire turned away hurriedly, a blush flooding her cheeks, Topher meekly made his way over to the examination bed.

Topher sat down sideways on the bed which he had so often seen the actives sitting in, and he let his legs hang over the edge. After a few seconds Claire returned with a new bottle of sleeping tablets which she placed on the medical tray beside the bed. There was a moment of awkward silence as she stood in front of Topher, neither of them sure how to continue their conversation after Claire's outburst.

"I really am fine you know - " Topher began but Claire cut him off.

"Don't even try, Topher. Your eyes are bloodshot, you've obviously got a bad headache, you're dizzy and I can tell you've hardly been getting any sleep," she retorted, her voice getting louder and louder as she became increasingly agitated.

"Ok," Topher conceded. "You're right. So can I just take the pills and go already?" he asked as he reached for the pill bottle.

"I don't think so," Claire replied, snatching the bottle away from his grasp and putting it in her coat pocket. "You're a walking health and safety hazard. Not only are you a danger to yourself, but you're also a danger to the actives. Do you seriously think that I'd allow you to imprint them in this condition?" she retorted.

Topher swallowed his anger as he made to stand and leave. But Claire was determined and she stood in his way, firmly placing herself between him and the door.

"There's no point in leaving," she snapped.

"I can leave if I want to," Topher replied angrily, "You can't stop me."

"Well, until you get some proper rest I'm not letting you any where near any of the actives," Claire insisted.

"And how are you going to do that exactly?" Topher said as he folded his arms across his chest and glared at her.

"I'll go directly to DeWitt if I have to," Claire retorted as she took a step closer to Topher.

Topher laughed sourly. "Well if you did that you'd be making a huge mistake," he said as he leant forward.

"And why is that?" Claire questioned, her tone menacing.

"Because she'd just tell you that you were overreacting and to let me do my job."

"And why would she say that?"

"Because I'm obviously fine!," Topher replied with a glare.

"Fine?" Claire shouted. "You've done nothing but tell me you're fine this entire time. And just looking at you I can tell that you're anything but fine. You've just kept on lying: I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm -" Claire stopped as her voice caught.

The two of them had been shouting, caught up in the argument, totally forgetting about the actives milling about on the main floor only a few meters away. They had been moving closer with every retort, so they were now standing with their faces only inches apart and suddenly the tension between them became even more unbearable. Topher felt his rage bubbling and boiling inside him, mixed with an overpowering, desperate longing for the woman in front of him. His gaze flickered from Claire's eyes to her lips where they hesitated for a moment, before meeting her gaze once again. To his surprise, he no longer saw fury in her eyes and he thought he could almost see desire lingering there.

Topher couldn't hold himself back and he leant forward, bridging the gap between them, crashing his lips against hers in a passionate kiss. He'd always imagined their first kiss would be sweet and gentle but this was almost the opposite. The kiss was angry and violent as two years of pent up sexual tension were unleashed. Their lips and teeth clashed almost painfully and Topher's hands wavered by his sides before he brought them to rest on her hips. Claire slid her hands up his arms and tangled them in his hair, pulling him closer.

Topher hands remained on her hips but he didn't dare pull her closer, afraid that any movement he made would make her pull away. He had waited so long for this and it was finally happening. He was kissing Claire Saunders. His mind was swirling and he felt lightheaded; but then again he had been feeling dizzy to begin with and this probably wasn't helping. Topher's musings were cut short as Claire moaned softly into his mouth and he couldn't help but tighten his grip on her hips and pull her closer.

It was a mistake. No sooner had Topher moved than Claire pulled away. They stood facing each other for a few moments, the only sound their ragged breathing. Then a look of horror crossed Claire's face and she turned away abruptly. Topher watched as Claire walked over to her desk chair and sat down, cradling her head in her hands. He ran a shaky hand through his hair as he wondered what to do. After a few minutes he sat down on the examination bed and waited to see if she wanted to talk. But when Claire didn't move or even speak, he figured that she wanted to be left alone. So he walked out of her office and back up to his.

What had he done?


	15. Chapter 15: Consequence

CHAPTER 15 - CONSEQUENCE

When Topher arrived back in his office he found Sierra waiting beside her handler, Hearn. As soon as Topher entered the office Hearn started scolding him for being late. Topher just nodded and tried to block out the tirade as he set up the chair for a wipe.

"… and she's injured too!" Hearn finally finished, pointing to Sierra's eye which was blackened by a large, purple bruise.

"I'll be done in two minutes and you can take her down to Dr. Saunders," he told Hearn as Sierra sat down in the chair.

"I don't have time for that," Hearn replied, exasperated. "Dewitt wanted to see me as soon as I got back and I've already wasted half an hour waiting for you! You make sure she gets down to the Doc." He said as he stalked out, heading for Dewitt's office.

Topher couldn't think of any way out of having to go back down to Claire's office. If only Ivy were there then he could ask her to take Sierra down; but Ivy wasn't even going to arrive at the Dollhouse for another hour. The wipe finished and Sierra opened her eyes.

"Did I fall asleep?" she asked.

"Yeah, for a little while. Now let's get you down to see the Doc," Topher said as he left the imprint room, Sierra following docilely behind him.

What would he say to her? Should he just pretend nothing happened? It hadn't felt like nothing to him. The taste of her lips – No, don't think about that. He decided that if she pretended nothing had happened then so would he. He wouldn't call her Claire he'd call her Dr. Saunders. Topher hadn't realized that he'd said his last thought aloud until he heard Sierra's voice behind him.

"Dr. Saunders is nice," she said dreamily.

"Yeah, she is," Topher replied, "She really is."

When they reached Claire's office, Topher decided to leave Sierra out side and go in first. He didn't think he'd be able to talk to Claire about what had happened with Sierra standing right behind him; even though he knew that a doll wouldn't really understand the conversation anyway.

"Hello again Mr. Brink," Claire said as he walked in. So that's the way it was going to be then. She was just going to pretend that nothing had happened. Then so would he.

"Dr. Saunders," he replied with a faint smile. There was an awkward pause as he tried not to look her in the eye, afraid he wouldn't be able to hold onto his mask of indifference. In reality her dismissal of what had happened between them was aching like a knife to the heart.

"Sierra's hurt herself," Topher mumbled, still looking at the floor.

"Why didn't Hearn bring her down?" Claire asked, seemingly unaffected by the awkwardness that had Topher effectively tongue-tied.

"He had to go see Dewitt so he asked me to bring her down," Topher replied and turned to the doorway, beckoning Sierra to come in.

Sierra walked over and sat down on the examination table and Claire moved towards her. She turned Sierra's head to the side so that she could examine the bruise that had caused her eye to swell shut. Topher turned to leave but stopped when Claire called out to him.

"What type of engagement was she on?" she asked. Topher turned back and walked towards the examination table.

"Um… I think it was a heist of some sort," he replied uncertainly.

"You think?"

"Yeah, I can go check if you want the exact details. But it doesn't really matter does it?"

"No, I guess not," Claire conceded as she examined Sierra's eye, shining a torch into it to check her pupil response.

"She'll be okay, right?," Topher asked.

"Yes, she should be fine. As far as I can tell there's no permanent damage to her eye and the bruising should clear up in a few days," Claire replied. "I'm almost done here, but could you send me down the file on her engagement so I can write up the report?" Claire asked as she led Sierra to the door.

"You know no one ever reads those reports?" Topher said with a slight smile.

"Just because you don't read them doesn't mean no one else does," Claire snapped back angrily.

Topher wasn't sure how the conversation had gone wrong so quickly.

"Yeah, I know. Sorry, I didn't mean… I'll go get you that file," he stuttered as he backed towards the door. Claire ran a hand through her hair and sighed wearily.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm just having a bad day," she said as she made her way towards her desk. Topher wasn't sure what to say but he wanted to know what she had thought of their kiss.

"Because of what happened before?" he asked warily, not wanting to make her any angrier than she already was.

Claire turned and looked back at him, her expression carefully guarded.

"Partly," was her only reply.

"So it was bad because…"

"It was bad because it shouldn't have happened."

"Why not?"

"Because we… we can't happen."

"Why?"

"Because I hate you," she shouted and turned away abruptly but didn't move to walk away from him.

"It didn't seem like you hated me when - "

"I know."  
>"So. What, you hate me sometimes?" Topher questioned.<p>

"Topher," Claire warned softly.

Topher was curious. He'd programmed her to hate him; but just a few hours ago when they'd kissed she had most definitely kissed him back. Was it her true feelings seeping through the feelings he'd imprinted her with? Or was it just a mistake? A glitch in her programming? He wanted to experiment, take it further; but deep down he knew he had to back off. Hadn't he programmed her to hate him for just this reason? So that no matter how much he flirted with her, no matter how charming he was, she would never fall for him. He both cursed and admired his past-self for thinking ahead, for anticipating what his feelings for Whiskey would turn into.

"I'll just go get that file," Topher muttered as he left.


	16. Chapter 16: Nightmare

CHAPTER 16 – NIGHTMARE

Claire sat at her desk and stared blankly at her computer screen. She hadn't meant for her conversation with Topher to end that way. She really hadn't wanted it to turn into an argument but, of course, it had. There was something about Topher that she couldn't stand and somehow almost every conversation they had turned into an fight. She just couldn't agree with him.

Considering how much she hated him, Claire couldn't understand was why their kiss had be so amazing. She hated everything about Topher yet she still felt drawn to him. Maybe she'd been in the Dollhouse for too long. She probably just needed a man in her life; though men were hard to come by when one had a face marred by scars. And even harder to come by seeing as she virtually never left the Dollhouse. She was hampered by her fear of crowds and open spaces which maybe going outside nerve wracking. It was also difficult to leave the Dollhouse because of the way people reacted to her scars. People always had the same reaction. They would stare at her and then force themselves to tear their gaze away, as though the sight of her both disgusted and enthralled them. Surprisingly Topher never seemed to mind her scars, or at least he didn't stare at them. Maybe they'd known each other for long enough now that he didn't notice them any more.

It had been hours since their argument and Topher still hadn't returned with Sierra's file. Claire had treated a dozen actives since he'd left and she'd gradually come to the conclusion that Topher wasn't going to come back. Claire glanced at her watch, it was early evening already and there weren't any actives due back from engagements until morning. It was rare that she would be able to leave her office before midnight and she planned on having an early night for a change. She was exhausted after a day of arguing with Topher and treating a never ending stream of actives, so she decided to leave early. If Topher came by he could just leave Sierra's file on her desk.

Claire walked to the back of her office and opened the door to the corridor that lead to her living quarters. Considering her unwillingness to leave the Dollhouse it was fortunate that there were living quarters available. No other employees had living quarters but apparently the old doctor, who she'd never even met had wanted them as part of his contract and now they were Claire's. She wondered where DeWitt and Boyd lived. Though maybe they never went home, because they always seemed to be at the Dollhouse. As for Topher, she knew that he never left and slept in the server room. She almost felt sorry for him.

Claire changed into her lacy black night-dress and hung her doctor's coat and clothes on the door knob, just in case she was called out to the office during the night. Then she lay down on her bed and sighed deeply as she finally relaxed. She stared up at the ceiling as she waited for sleep to claim her and prayed she wouldn't have the nightmare. Claire called it _the_ nightmare because it was always the same and she had every night. She'd tried taking sleeping tablets in the hope that they would dispel the horrible dream, but it hadn't worked so she had resigned herself to having the nightmare.

Finally, after she had been staring blankly at the ceiling for what seemed to be hours, Claire's exhaustion overcame her. Her eyes fluttered shut as darkness embraced her and the nightmare started almost immediately.

_S__he was a doll. Although her body was her own she couldn't control it, and there were thoughts in her head that weren't hers. 'I try to be my best'. That particular thought made her cringe. She looked up to find that she was sitting in the art room with other dolls, like her, they were all pruning small potted trees. The only people she could recognize were Echo and Alpha. Claire tried to get up and leave, wanting to get away from Alpha but her body wouldn't obey her. Her dream-self looked down to trim a branch of her tree and when she looked up Alpha was standing over her, his pruning shears in hand. She stared up at him, screaming at herself to run away, but her dream body remained frozen._

"_Let Echo be number one," Alpha intoned as he leant forward and raised the pruning shears. Claire felt the sharp metal slice into her face. The pain felt so real, even though she kept on telling herself that it was just a dream. She could feel the blood from her wounds, wet and sticky as it seeped into her clothes; it felt very real and for a moment she wondered if this really was just a dream. She could hear terrible screams and it took her a moment to realize that they were her screams._

_Two women who had been standing on the other side of the room ran over, shouting loudly and began trying to pull Alpha away. The noise of the commotion was deafening and the pain was excruciating. Then, as the security team rushed in and tried to restrain Alpha, Claire felt someone grab her arms and drag her away. The person dragging her stopped and sat down, holding her close to them. _

_She looked up to see a man's pale face smeared with her blood. She tried to figure out who he was but pain was clouding her mind, threatening to make her pass out. The man's arms were wrapped around her and she felt strangely safe. All she could remember was that he was the nice man and she liked him._

"_Medic! We need a medic over here!" the man cried and seconds later Claire was surrounded by people wearing gloves as they lifted her onto a gurney._

_She couldn't see the nice man any more and she suddenly felt cold without his arms around her. She saw the face of an older man she recognized as a doctor looming over her as the gurney beneath her began to move and she felt slightly safer. The pain gradually faded as a terrifying blackness slid over her and she slid into unconsciousness._

_Then there was black._

Claire sat up in bed, gasping. Although she had the same nightmare almost every night she always woke up in a cold sweat, her heart pounding. Mostly she tried not to think about the dream too much. As far as she could tell it was her unconscious mind combining of her fear of Alpha and her moral qualms about the ethics of the Dollhouse. She would hate to be a doll, unable to defend herself, blank, empty and designed to be hired out to the wealthy. She would never agree to sign a contract to become a mindless slave.

The one thing that bothered Claire was the man in her nightmare. Who was he? And why did he seem so familiar?

**A/N:**

**Hi to my few but awesome readers! I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter. Criticisms are more than welcome :) I would also love to hear ideas about what you would like to see in future chapters… I've written the next few and they should be up soon and reviews inspire me to write more…. *****hint hint*******


	17. Chapter 17: Truth

CHAPTER 17 – TRUTH

Claire was wide awake after being woken up by her nightmare. It was early morning, only about six, but she couldn't get back to sleep. So she decided to go out to her office early, after all, she still had Sierra's engagement report to write up.

Claire sat down at her desk and booted up her computer. She looked down to find that Topher had left Sierra's file on her desk. She wasn't really surprised that he hadn't come back after their argument. Claire almost felt bad about how she'd reacted to him trying to bring up their kiss, but she quickly smothered her guilt with a renewed facade of hatred for the immoral programmer.

Claire had just finished writing up her report on Sierra's engagement when a ding alerted her to an email from DeWitt. The email brusquely informed her that Juliet's contract was up and that tomorrow she was going to be re-imprinted with her original personality and released from the Dollhouse. Claire's job was to check Juliet's compiled file, give her a final examination and write up a summary report before she was released.

Of course, it was just Claire's luck that all of the actives' compiled files were kept on Topher's computer and were only allowed to be transferred on disks and not by email for security reasons. So Claire reluctantly made her way up to Topher's office, all the while wondering what she would say. Should she apologize or just pretend that nothing had happened? She almost wished they could just go back to hating each other rather than dancing around each other awkwardly.

As it turned out, Topher wasn't even in his office. The only person there was Ivy who was elbow deep in the innards of one of the machines in the imprint room. Claire felt a wave of relief as she turned to leave; at least she would be able to put of their inevitable meeting until later in the day.

"Dr. Saunders!" Claire heard Ivy call out from behind her and she turned back and walked into the imprint room.

"Hello Ivy, I was just looking for Topher but I'll come back later."

"He's at a meeting with DeWitt. But what was it you wanted?" Ivy asked, pushing a wayward strand of blue streaked hair behind her ear with a gloved hand.

"I need Juliet's file because she's being released tomorrow," Claire replied.

"Well, I'm kind of busy right now but I'll type in the password for you so you can just burn it to a disk," Ivy said as she pulled off her gloves.

Ivy typed in the password and then went back to the imprint room leaving Claire to sit down at Topher's desk and scrounge around for a blank disk. She eventually found a stack of them under a pile of engagement files on the desk then she turned to the computer and opened the folder of actives' files. After ten minutes of fruitlessly searching for Juliet's file Claire called out to Ivy to ask where it was.

"It might have been moved into the folder of ex-actives' files if she's being released tomorrow," Ivy called back.

The folder of ex-actives' files was buried deep within the hard drive of Topher's computer. As with the previous folder, each active's file was named and the folder icon was a photograph of them. The ex-actives' files detailed their lives inside the Dollhouse, the engagements they'd been on, their medical examinations as well as their lives prior to coming to the Dollhouse. There weren't very many files in the folder and Claire was struck by how few people had completed their contracts so far.

The phone on the desk next to Claire began to ring.

"I'll get it!" Ivy called as she ran in from the imprint room. After a few 'of course's Ivy hung up.

"I've got to go up to DeWitt's office so I can't stick around. But DeWitt said that Topher would be back down soon so he can help you if you can't find Juliet's file," Ivy called back to Claire as she rushed from the room.

When Ivy had left Claire turned back to the computer and began to scroll down to Juliet's file. She stopped as one of the files at the bottom of the page caught her eye and she scrolled down to it, leaning in closer to examine the icon. The file was labeled Whiskey and the photograph showed a face she would never forget. It was her face.

Claire's first reaction was total disbelief and then came the denial. It just wasn't possible. She wasn't a doll. Someone had just put the wrong picture on the file by mistake. She'd know if she was a doll. Well, realistically she wouldn't. But she knew who she was. She could remember her childhood home, her best friend at school, her high school prom.

It didn't make sense. Her whole life couldn't be a lie. But the file on the screen before her told the real truth. Her life really was a lie. Her memories were fabricated. She was nothing more than an imprint; a temporary host in someone else's body. For a moment Claire considered opening the file, but she decided that she wouldn't be able to live knowing who she really was; who she should be.

Suddenly everything made sense. She understood why she was still at the Dollhouse, why she felt as though she could never leave and why she was afraid of crowds and open spaces. They were keeping her here. The phobias were precautions to make sure that she couldn't leave. After all, dolls belong in the Dollhouse.

Claire wondered how much of her contract was left. She looked at the photo of the person she used to be and noticed that she had no scars back then. Maybe she wasn't on a contract now. After all, they couldn't really give her body back with horrible scars and she was definitely more use to them as a doctor than a disfigured doll.

She thought back to how she had got her scars, touching on the painful memory of Alpha attacking her in her office. No, that was a lie. No doubt the real events of the attack were more along the lines of her horrible recurring nightmare. Instead of an innocent bystander caught in the attack she had been the cause. A helpless, defenseless doll who had inspired Alpha's anger by being more popular than Echo.

"Dr Saunders?" Claire faintly heard someone say.

"Claire!" She turned around and came face to face with Topher. She watched as he took in her shocked, pale face and then glanced at the computer screen behind her. His face drained of all colour as he saw the file she had been looking at.

"Claire….." he began.


	18. Chapter 18: Hatred

CHAPTER 18 – HATRED

"Claire….." he began.

"I think you gave me more computer skills than would be required by a medical doctor," Claire replied coldly. "It was very easy for me to hack your system," she continued, gesturing to the computer screen causing Topher to close his eyes in a grimace.

Claire stood up from the chair and stepped towards Topher who moved away from her slightly, fear and contrition dancing in his eyes.

"I'm curious," she said and Topher shifted uncomfortably before replying.

"About?" he asked.

"Well, I guess I understand why they wouldn't want to waste an investment," Claire replied as she took another step towards Topher who again moved backwards. "And, I suppose, why hire a new physician when you can just imprint the broken doll," she said as she took another step. Topher's back hit a stand of files as he ran out of space to back away. His eyes flickered from where they'd been trained on the floor to meet hers and she glared at him frostily as she met his guilty gaze.

"But why did you decide that it was so important for me to hate you?" she asked and he looked at her in surprise, holding her gaze as she leant closer until their faces were inches apart. Claire felt a strange sense of achievement as he stared at her, frozen, his uneven breath warm against her skin. She watched as Topher regained control and unsuccessfully tried to avoid her gaze, his eyes darting between the floor and the computer but always being drawn back to hers.

"You didn't open it," he muttered, so softly that she barely heard him. She didn't even glance back at the computer, only continued to stare at him. He looked her in the eyes as he awaited her answer and she could see the emotions he was trying to keep down written all over his face. She was surprised that he cared so much. Why would it matter to him that she had found out? Sure it was a pain that he technically had to re-imprint her to remove the knowledge that she's a doll; but it wasn't that bad. Unless there was something else.

"No," Claire finally replied.

"Aren't you curious so see who you really are?" Topher asked softly and her eyes were irreparably drawn to the image of the girl she used to be. She felt a sudden surge of anger. Anger towards her old self for putting her in this situation, anger towards Topher for everything he'd done to her and anger towards herself for not realizing sooner that she was a fake.

"I know who I am," Claire bit back in a controlled voice.

She turned away from Topher and heard him give a relieved sigh when she had moved out of his personal space. She walked towards the railing and leant heavily on it as her emotions threaten to overwhelm her. When she closed her eyes she heard Topher moving towards her and seconds later he was leaning on the railing beside her.

All of a sudden Claire was struck by a moment of clarity. Until this moment she hadn't understood why Topher would make her hate him. She hadn't understood why he'd bothered. Suddenly she did. The furtive looks in her direction, the way he'd been watching her, the kiss, his reaction to her finding her file; they all added up to one thing. He'd made her hate him because he was in love with her.

"Let's stop playing games," she muttered, turning towards him and Topher turned to face her. He opened his mouth to speak, confusion written all over his face as she leant forward and slid her arms over his chest to his shoulders. Topher's mouth moved soundlessly as he tried to speak but Claire leant in and pressed her lips to his.

At first Topher didn't move and stood still as she kissed him. Then his hands moved to her waist as if to pull her closer and she was surprised when, instead, he pushed her away. He held her at arms length as he gasped.

"How does this qualify as not playing games?"

"Because this is the end game," Claire replied definitely and leant in again. Again Topher pushed her away, staring at her with a mixture of alarm and distress.

"This is where it all leads," she explained. "You design someone to hate you so you can convince them to love you." A look of shock crossed his face and for a moment she thought she'd got him. But he still managed to form a reply.

"I could whip up a love slave any day I wanted," he replied.

"But that wouldn't be a challenge, would it?" Claire countered as she gripped his arms and pulled him closer. "Slaves are just slaves," she murmured as he gasped slightly and tried to pull away. "But winning over your enemy. The one person guaranteed to reject everything you are," she whispered as she moved closer until their noses were touching. "That's real love. More real than anything up in the world. And I understand it now."

"I love you," she sighed as she kissed him, "I love you." Topher responded to the kiss for all of a second before he seized her arms and pushed her away. Claire couldn't stop herself, she had gone too far to pull back now. She raised her hand and slapped him hard across the face. He reeled away from her, bumping into the corner of his desk. There was a moment of silence as they both gasped for breath and then he turned back to her.

"You need a treatment," he said in a forcedly calm voice as he tried to mask his expression.

"Shouldn't I love you?" she shouted, her anger finally released. "Aren't you lovable? Aren't you big brother? The Lord my God?" she cried as she gestured wildly. "Why should I fight your divine plan?" she asked bitterly. To her surprise instead of the silent reaction she had been expecting, he stepped towards her purposefully.

"Because you're better than that," he replied angrily. "Because you're better than me." Claire stepped backwards and watched as Topher began to pace the office.

"Dr. Saunders was dead," he began. "And Whiskey was out of service," he continued, his voice breaking slightly. "At least temporarily. So DeWitt gave me the call. We need a new doctor." Claire looked away, unable to look Topher in the eyes as he told her the real story of her life; the story that she had only been able to guess at so far. "One who's committed to our cause. Who's kind and efficient and will look after our actives."

"So why didn't you stop there?" Claire interrupted. Topher stopped pacing and turned to stare at her.

"Because I was creating a person, not a roomba," he replied harshly. "I needed you to be whole," he cried, running his hands frustratedly through his hair. "If you agreed with everything I said then we would miss something and someone would get hurt."

"You don't care if people get hurt," she yelled, distressed.

"You don't know me," he shouted back. "That's the way it has to be. You can't know me and I can't know you. Not fully. Not ever," he muttered. Claire felt a sudden wave of despair. When she'd first seen the file she'd thought she understood, but really she had barely begun to scratch the surface and now the whole truth was pouring out.

"I made you question," Topher continued. "I made you fight for your beliefs."

"You made me hate you," she whispered.

"I had to," he murmured in reply. Claire sunk down to sit on the floor, her back resting against the railing and Topher sat down next to her, close enough to be comforting but not so close as to be uncomfortable. She no longer felt angry at him now that she knew what had really happened. From what she could tell, he'd made her hate him because he was afraid of his feelings for her; but part of her didn't want to hate him. If she was truthful, part of her was beginning to feel something for Topher that was quite the opposite of hate. Deep down she'd known that ever since she'd watched him undress in the server room.

"How do I live," she asked while trying desperately not to cry. "How do I go through my day knowing everything I think has been programmed into me?" Topher watched her with a mixture of pity and remorse before replying.

"You could find out who you really used to be," he said almost reluctantly. "This is your chance. Maybe DeWitt would let me re-imprint your old identity. If you wanted me to."

"But I don't want to die," she whispered, her voice cracking as she voiced the idea that she knew he was thinking. He reached out as if to comfort her but began to pull his hand back. Claire grabbed hold of his hand and he glanced at her in surprise before giving her a faint smile.

"I know," he murmured.

"I'm not even real," she continued. "I'm in someone else's body and I'm afraid to give it up." She looked down at their joined hands with tear-blurred eyes. "I'm not better than you. I'm just a series of excuses," she whispered and tried to withdraw her hand as she turned her head away. Topher only gripped her hand tighter and she turned back to face him.

"You're human," he said.

"No I'm not," she replied with a wry smile. "But thanks for saying it." Then she removed her hand from his and stood up. Neither of them spoke as she straightened out her coat and left the office.

As she walked down the stairs Claire wiped the tears from her eyes. She was just going to have to live with the truth.


	19. Chapter 19: Return

CHAPTER 19 – RETURN

Claire sighed as she walked towards her office. The day had just been too long and too draining. She could hardly wait to crawl into bed and sleep, regardless of the nightmare she knew she would have.

She was a doll. The emotional part of her was trying to deny it while the rational part of her had already resigned itself to it. Plus, as if it couldn't get any worse; she had just tried to jump Topher, in his office, with the huge glass window, that anyone could see into. She was truly falling to pieces.

As Claire walked through the doorway and into her office a hand suddenly shot out and clamped itself over her mouth, stifling her instinctive scream. She struggled against the grip but another arm wrapped itself around her waist, pinning her arms in front of her as she was pulled back against her attacker. Claire desperately tried to maneuver herself out of her attacker's grasp and she managed to bite down on her assailants hand. She heard a grunt of pain and a curse and she realized that her attacker was a man.

The man dragged her away from the doorway as he slid the sliding door shut with his foot. Then she felt his hot breath on the side of her face as he whispered into her ear.

"I'll let you go so long as you don't scream. We wouldn't want anyone to hear you and come running now, would we?" he hissed. Claire only struggled against him, thrashing desperately in an attempt to get free. She'd heard that voice before but her panicking mind couldn't distinguish it. Who was this man?

"I'm not going to let you go until you agree. Now, be a good girl and nod for me." Claire nodded frantically, figuring that she could always scream and take her chances defending herself until help came.

Her assailant slowly removed his hand from her mouth and his arm from around her waist. As soon as she was free Claire spun to face her attacker. When she saw the man's face she froze in terror, all thoughts of screaming for help vanished.

"Alpha," she whispered as she took in the face of the man before her. His eyes were cold as his mouth curved into a wry smile. She gasped as he suddenly lunged forward and grabbed her face with one hand. Alpha was unbelievably strong and, holding her by her jaw, he pushed her backwards until her back collided hard with her desk. A flash of unbelievable pain tore through her and she would have collapsed had Alpha not been holding onto her.

"Ah," he murmured as he grasped the back of her head roughly with his other hand, angling her face upwards. Then he released the back of her head and brought his hand round to her face. With a flash of terror she saw that he was holding a scalpel in his hand. He raised his thumb to her cheek and ran it over the two scars there. Claire whimpered in fear as his fingers dug painfully into her where he was holding onto her.

"You kept my gifts," he muttered as Claire squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look at him. Abruptly he moved his hand away from her face and back to her head and used it to seize her tightly. She was unable to fight back as he forced her to nod her head.

"Yes, of course," he murmured as tears slid down Claire's cheeks.

"Now you," he commanded, glaring at her.

"Yes, of course," she managed to gasp out as he continued to force her to nod her head.

Alpha leant closer, smiling maniacally at her. Then his expression turned serious as he moved his hand back to her face again.

"They're unique you know," he whispered. He pawed at her face again and Claire gasped as she tried to shy away. "Turns out different every time," he continued, peering intently at her scars. "These next ones for example," he muttered and Claire let out a sob, "they're going to be much deeper." Alpha raised the scalpel to her forehead where a diagonal scar crossed her features. She felt the sharp tip dig into her skin and she whimpered as a drop of blood slid down her face.

"Please," she begged, her voice cracking and then trailing into a whisper.

"Please?" Alpha mocked her. "I don't think so. You're not what I came here for, but you'll do for an interesting sideshow before the main event," he whispered malevolently into her ear as he pressed down harder with the scalpel. "How about we open one of these up and then we'll see if you can do any better than 'please'," he continued and Claire felt the scalpel pierce the skin of her forehead.

"No," she cried, "Please, no." But Alpha only smiled at her as the scalpel split open her old scar.

"Stay nice and quiet or we'll have to end this now and you won't care for the closing scene," he warned as he leant forward.

Claire bit the inside of her lip and tried desperately not to scream as the scalpel trailed liquid fire across her skin. Her vision was obscured momentarily by as haze of blackness and when she opened her eyes her eyelashes were sticky with blood. Her own blood. She started to shake though her scream remained forcedly lodged in her throat. Finally the scalpel reached her right eyebrow and the pressure released; though the knifing pain remained. In horror she observed Alpha's face, spattered with her blood as he leaned in to admire his handiwork.

"Let's try something else," he muttered. "Have you always wanted to be a doctor?" he asked, staring into her eyes intently. "It's a simple question. Answer now," he commanded, his face contorting in sudden anger.

"Yes," she stammered and when she closed her mouth again she could taste the metallic tang of blood on her lips.

"That's a lie," he whispered calmly and he raised the scalpel to her face again, slicing open one of the scars across her cheek with one fluid motion. Claire bit back a scream as a fresh gush of blood flowed down her face.

"Let's try again," he continued. "Have you always wanted to be a doctor?" he asked, his voice eerily patient and calm. Claire didn't answer as she shook with fear and indecision. What was the right answer? Was there even a right answer?

"Answer me," he growled and pressed the scalpel to the other scar on her cheek.

"I don't know," she gasped. Another flash of pain and Alpha had split open another scar. Claire's bloody tears dripped from her nose and chin as she struggled to stay upright, the pain almost overwhelming her.

"The answer is 'no'," Alpha hissed and the scalpel sliced the scar that crossed her lips. Claire moaned in pain and slumped against the desk but Alpha pulled her back to standing. He was about to open his mouth to speak again when he turned towards the doorway. Claire could hear footsteps as someone walked across the main floor. She prayed that the person had heard her and was coming to help. Alpha let go of her and moved towards the glazed partition wall to peer out at who ever it was. Claire tried to scramble away but she could barely move, the pain was excruciating and she was feeling light headed from all the blood she'd lost.

Before she had time to get herself together and move away, Alpha was back from the window. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over to the wall, then he held the scalpel up to her neck and Claire whimpered in fear. This was it. She was going to die.

"I'm going to tell you what to say and you're going to say it. Okay?" Alpha whispered and Claire nodded anxiously in response. "Echo, come here please," he dictated and Claire copied him. Hoping that someone other than Echo would hear and come save them both.

She heard the footsteps come closer to the door and moments later the sliding door opened and Echo stepped into the office. She looked around in confusion for a moment before turning and seeing Alpha and Claire by the doorway. Alpha abruptly shoved Claire away and she fell to the floor as Alpha slid the door shut behind Echo. She clutched her face as she watched Alpha approach Echo.

"Echo," he whispered.

"Oh, I know you," she replied. "I remember something about you," she continued.

"I remember everything about you," he murmured, reaching out to stroke her face. Then he grabbed her hand, slid open the door and pulled her, unresistingly, from the room.

Claire rose to her feet unsteadily, and began to stumble towards the doorway. She staggered out onto the main floor in time to see Alpha running, tugging Echo towards the stairway up to Topher's office. She could see a figure standing in their way at the bottom of the stairs. She tried to call out, but she was using all of her strength just to stand and her cry came out as an inaudible croak. Alpha shoved the person out of the way and ran up the stairs, pulling Echo along behind him. The person righted themselves as Claire stumbled towards them. Then they looked up and began to run towards her calling out to her as they ran. She recognized the voice; it was Topher.

Claire just managed to reach him before she collapsed into his arms. Her head was spinning and a dark veil began to spread across her eyes. She could see her blood seeping into Topher's striped sweater vest, staining it crimson.

_I'm safe with the nice man,_ she thought, as her eyes closed and the darkness claimed her.


	20. Chapter 20: Awakening

CHAPTER 20 – AWAKENING

Claire couldn't see anything and for a moment she panicked. Was she dead? Was she blind? Had she escaped or was Alpha just waiting for her to wake up? She struggled to open her eyes but she only managed to pry them open long enough to see a bright light. The light was surprisingly painful and made her head throb excruciatingly so she closed her eyes again.

Although Claire couldn't open her eyes long enough to see where she was, she could hear and feel. She could feel that she was lying down and, judging by the feeling of the sheet pulled over her, she guessed she was lying in a bed. She could hear a persistent beeping and the sound of a whirring machine. Someone was beside her, breathing deeply, their steady breaths in time with her own. She tried to call out to them, but her voice refused to work. Her body felt cold, apart from her right hand which had something warm on top of it. Tentatively, she moved her hand slightly, and realized that the source of the warmth was someone's hand resting on top of hers.

There was a strange soreness in her throat as though something was caught in it and the feeling made her gag. Gagging didn't help, in fact it made the pain worse and Claire started to choke. Her eyes shot open and her hands flew to her throat. The shrill beeping noise sped up as she began to panic. Her vision was still blurry but she could see well enough to see a fuzzy figure rise beside her. The person was calling out to her but she couldn't hear them over the sound of her heart pounding in her ears and the frenzied beeping noise. Suddenly hands grasped her wrists and pinned them by her side. Claire's only thought was that the person was Alpha and so she thrashed violently, trying to escape. She felt a stab of pain as her movements caused a needle to rip out of her arm and she felt sticky blood drip from the wound. She tried wriggle out of her attacker's grasp, her labored breathing scorching her raw throat as she gasped, but the person climbed on top her to hold her down.

Claire heard hurried footsteps coming towards her and then she was surrounded by more people. Three of them moved closer to help her attacker hold her down, their gloved hands cold as they gripped her arms and legs. When she had been restrained, the person on top her climbed off her and stood next to the bed, taking her hand.

"Claire, calm down. It's me, Topher," the person said. Claire stopped thrashing and blinked until her vision cleared. Sure enough, Topher was standing beside her, surrounded by doctors who were holding her down. The beeping was coming from a monitor that was attached to her chest with wires and blood was dripping down her arm from where she had pulled her IV out during her struggle.

A doctor leant over her and explained that she was on a ventilator to help her breathe after her operation and that she needed to stay calm. Topher glanced over at the doctor worriedly.

"I think she wants it out," he said and Claire heard his voice tremble slightly. His hand was grasping hers tightly, almost painfully, and she could feel him shaking. The doctor turned back to her and asked if she wanted the ventilator out. Claire nodded slightly in response, and the doctor told her to relax as he removed the tube.

When the ventilator had been disconnected, Claire lay still, breathing deeply. Topher was sitting in a chair beside the bed but he wasn't holding her hand anymore, his hand resting in his lap while her pale one lay on top of the white sheets. So far she hadn't said anything; not when the doctors had taken out the ventilator, not when they'd patched up her arm and not when they'd finally left. Topher, being Topher, had talked almost non-stop since she'd woken up, mostly he'd asked her if she was okay and he had continued to ask her every few minutes, not at all deterred by the fact that he never received an answer. The doctors had told him that she might not be able to speak for a little while due to the ventilator restricting her vocal chords but in reality, Claire could speak. She just didn't want to.

The doctors had left almost twenty minutes ago and Topher had finally lapsed into an uneasy silence. Looking around her Claire was surprised to notice that she was still in the Dollhouse. The bed she was lying in was in the middle of her office, her desk and examination table had been pushed to the sides of the room, leaving her bookshelves, the hospital bed and a small bedside table. Judging by the medical equipment and the doctors who had been there earlier, Claire guessed that Adelle must have used one of her valuable connections in order to make this as indiscreet as possible. After all, Claire couldn't show up to a normal hospital with life threatening facial wounds and no explanation without causing suspicion; and the last thing the Dollhouse needed was anyone researching into its employees.

Glancing over at Topher, Claire noticed that there were no bloodstains on his clothes as she remembered and she wondered how much time had gone by since she had passed out in his arms. Why was he by her bed anyway? Seeing as they were still at the Dollhouse he almost definitely had work to do. Although, with Alpha back, Adelle must have cancelled engagements for a while to ensure the safety of the actives, as they were much easier to protect when they were all in the house. Though the infamous Dollhouse security had done little to protect Claire when Alpha had attacked her and stolen away with Echo.

Echo had been taken and Claire had been powerless to stop it. Maybe Alpha had forgotten about the GPS strips every active had in their necks and Topher had been able to track them and get Echo back to the house safely. That would explain why he had enough time to sit by her bed. She could only hope for the best. If Alpha had managed to imprint Echo with any of a number of personalities and escape untraced, the outcomes didn't even bear thinking about.

Claire's throat was really dry and sore and she found herself wishing that she'd asked one of the doctors for some pain killers, or maybe something stronger. She eyed the cup of water on her bedside table but couldn't find the strength to reach out for it.

"Topher," she croaked, her voice strained and cracking. He immediately jumped up from his chair.

"Are you okay? Do you want me to get the doctors back?" he asked. He quickly stopped talking when Claire glared at him, eyebrows raised. Raising her eyebrows was painful as her wounds stretched across her face, but it was worth it when Topher finally stopped talking.

"Water," she whispered and Topher handed her the cup, glancing at her worriedly, as if she would drop dead any second. His concerned gaze was even more disconcerting than his endless questions and Claire closed her eyes with a sigh as she handed back the cup.

"Do you want me to leave?" Topher asked quietly.

"No," Claire replied, her throat feeling much better after a drink, "It's okay. You can stay if you want to." Topher gave her a slight smile as he resumed his seat in the chair. There was only a few seconds silence before Claire spoke again.

"Is it bad?" she asked.

"Is what bad?"

"My face," Claire replied, her voice shaking slightly, "How much worse is it this time?"

Topher looked at her with a pitying expression as he replied.

"Well, you lost a lot of blood, but the doctors stitched you up and they gave you a transfusion during the operation. They said you should heal fine within a few months."

"It's like déjà vu," Claire murmured wryly, "except I know that my memory of last time is a lie."

"Claire, about the file – " Topher began.

"Don't, just don't," Claire interrupted. "I can't talk about this right now. Did you really expect that now that I know the truth everything would be all hunky dory? What am I supposed to do? Everything I think, I worry about whether it's really me or just some program you put in my head. I can't even trust myself anymore." Claire's voice faded as she choked back tears and turned her head away, staring intently at the wall as she blinked furiously. She wouldn't cry.

Her outburst seemed to put an end to the relatively companionable situation and Topher stood up to leave.

"I'd better go, I have to go and meet with Adelle and Boyd about… the… uh… incident," he mumbled. "And you should get some rest."

Claire didn't turn around as she heard his footsteps move away from her. She felt a strange wetness on her face and she reached up to wipe away the tears that were tracking down her face, stinging her wounds. Now that she had started crying she couldn't stop and she had to muffle her sobs with her hand as her emotions poured out, unable to reign them in any longer.

When she felt as though she had run out of tears Claire closed her eyes, relaxing into the tear sodden pillow. She quickly drifted off into a deep sleep, unaware that Topher was still standing in the doorway.


	21. Chapter 21: Prayers

CHAPTER 21 – Prayers

No matter what task he put his mind to, Topher always found himself at the door to Claire's office, watching over her as she slept. One minute he'd be finishing some of the endless paperwork he'd been ignoring for weeks and the next his traitorous feet would be leading him downstairs and across the main floor. The actives were being kept in the house to keep them safe from Alpha and without the distraction of wiping and imprinting dolls Topher just couldn't keep his mind off Claire.

He stood in the doorway, knowing he shouldn't be there, afraid that if he went in he'd crowd her, even in her sleep. He hadn't even planned on being there when she'd woken up after her operation. After Claire finding out she was a doll and considering the way their last conversation had ended, Topher thought that he'd hardly be the person she wanted to see when she woke up. But he hadn't been able to bear the thought of her waking up alone and when the sedative had worn off and she'd woken up, Topher had found that he just couldn't leave.

Claire's scars were worse than last time, but the doctors had been confident that they would heal. Topher couldn't help but wonder what had happened between Claire and Alpha. It made sense for Alpha to come back to the Dollhouse to get Echo but why make a detour just to torture Claire? Though, with a computer-full of personalities in his head Alpha was unpredictable and dangerous at the best of times.

Topher had been sitting in his office, on his computer, compiling an imprint for Victor when he'd notice shapes moving behind the glazed glass of Claire's office. Though it wasn't unusual for there to be actives and handlers in her office, even at night, there hadn't been any dolls who'd come in from engagements for the past few hours, so she couldn't have been treating anyone. He had wondered who was in there. Then he'd realized the fact that he knew so much about Claire's schedule was slightly creepy so he'd gone back to his computer.

Now Topher was mentally kicking himself for not getting up and investigating. If he had, maybe he would have caught Alpha before he'd had a chance to attack Claire. Though what he would be able to do against a scalpel-wielding Alpha, Topher didn't know. He might have been able to protect Claire though, even if it had meant facing the scalpel himself.

The next time Topher had looked up, he'd noticed Echo wandering across the floor which was strange because normally the actives were tucked up, safe and sound in their pods at that time of night. As he'd watched, Echo had looked over towards Claire's office, as though something had caught her attention and she'd started walking towards the office door. Curiosity piqued, Topher had left his office and gone down to the main floor to see what was going on.

When he'd reached the bottom of the stairs Topher had seen Alpha run out of Claire's office, pulling Echo along behind him. His blood had frozen to ice in his veins as he'd watched the violent maniac who haunted his nightmares run towards his at full speed. As they ran towards him, Topher had realized that he was right in their path, but it had been too late to move out of the way. Preparing to be attacked by Alpha, he'd flinched and shied away but had been surprised when Alpha had merely shoved him out of the way and continued up the stairs. He'd grabbed onto the railing to steady himself and as he'd straightened up he'd seen her.

Claire had been stumbling across the main floor towards him, her white doctor's coat covered in blood that, judging by the gashes on her face, was her own. She had taken a wavering step forward and Topher had started to run towards her calling out to her and shouting for help as he ran. Topher had watched her sway as she struggled to stay standing and, as soon as he'd reached her she'd collapsed in his arms. She'd whispered something about a nice man and then her eyes had fluttered shut.

Topher had known that he wasn't strong enough carry Claire to get help and, although he hadn't wanted to leave her, he'd needed to get to a phone to call for help. He'd laid her gently on the floor before making a dash for her office to use the phone. After a panicked call to security and DeWitt he'd rushed back to where Claire lay and waited with her until security had arrived, closely followed by DeWitt and a team of doctors. The doctors had swept Claire up and carried her into her office with a flurry of white coats. Topher had hurried after them, trying to ignore Claire's blood staining his sweater vest. When he'd reached the office he'd had the door shut in his face by a stern looking doctor, leaving him to wait outside with Adelle.

At first he'd questioned the fact that they were carrying out an operation in an office rather than a proper operating room but Adelle had assured him that the doctors knew what they were doing. While he'd waited, Topher had watched the occasional glimpses of white coats through the glass. He'd wondered whether, even though he didn't believe in God, he should pray that everything would turn out okay. Having been a non-believer his whole life would God even bother to listen to him? Despite his doubts he'd prayed anyway.

Now, as he stood in the doorway to Claire's office, watching her sleep, he wondered if God had been listening. Maybe his prayers had been answered after all. Topher's musings were cut short when he heard a moan from Claire's bed. He looked up to see her shaking her head and thrashing and for a moment he thought she was having some sort of seizure. He quickly realized that she was having a nightmare and raced over to her bed.

Her called out to her but she didn't wake up. Then he sat down on the bed and placed his hands on her shoulders to shake her gently but her hands shot up and grasped onto his arms as her eyes flew open. Claire sat up, eyes wide and filled with panic and for an instant Topher thought she might attack him. They sat frozen for a moment before he tried to pull away and at that instant she collapsed onto him and started sobbing.

For a full minute Topher sat completely still in shock as Claire cried into his shoulder. He'd never been good at comforting people, he'd never been good a people really; but he managed to gather his wits and pat her back uncertainly.

"It's okay," he murmured into her hair.

"I can't escape him," Claire sobbed, "He's always there; in my thoughts, in my dreams. It's like he's living in my head."

"He's gone now. Alpha's gone and he can't hurt you."

"He's still here. He's waiting inside my head and when I shut my eyes he…" Claire's voice trailed off and Topher leant back to look at her.

"I could take him out of your head. If you want," he suggested seriously. Claire was silent for a moment before replying.

"Part of me just wants him gone; but I don't think I could ever go in the chair. I mean, go in the chair again," she replied. Topher gave her a wry smile as he heard the answer he'd been expecting.

"I didn't expect you to say yes, but I thought I'd offer anyway."

"Thanks, it was…" She trailed off, searching for a word.

"Nice," Topher provided. Claire gave him a fake shocked look which was some what counteracted by the tears still wet on her cheeks.

"I don't think I can have the words 'Topher' and 'nice' in the same sentence. The world might blink out of existence," she said with a slight smile. He replied with an equally phony look of outrage.

The happy banter seemed wrong after everything that had happened in the last few days and within seconds Claire's face fell and the mood became somber again.

"Well, I should go and you should get some more sleep. You look like hell." Topher grinned, trying to lighten the mood as he extricated himself from her grasp and stood up.

"Can you stay?" Claire whispered hesitantly. Topher looked down at her and his surprise must have shown on his face because she quickly added, "I mean, if you want to. Just for a bit."

He sat back down on the bed, ignoring the chair set beside it and replied, "Only if you go to sleep." Claire sat back against the head of the bed and shuffled closer to him as he moved to sit beside her.

"I know it goes against my programming; but I don't think I hate you any more," she murmured softly as she rested her head against his shoulder.

"My programming must not be as good as I thought," he joked. When Topher received no reply he looked down at Claire in concern but she was fast asleep. He hadn't got much sleep for the past few days either so he put his arm around her and shifted slightly to get comfortable before closing his eyes.

Even though he wasn't sure what Claire really felt, this not-hatred was just fine with him.

**Note:**

**Just a ****quick shout out to my fabulous reviewers and readers who have stuck with me so far! Sorry I don't update very often… Unfortunately I occasionally have to take go out into the strange world that exists outside my computer. Also a HUGE thanks to randomshoes42 for pointing out that I had uploaded a one shot instead of chapter 19! Sorry to anyone who was confused by that… :s**

**And a quick reply to morganaoflocksley:**

**Reviews really inspire me to write and I would still continue to update even if I didn't get reviews… Just probably not as often and with much less enthusiasm… Also I absolutely agree that there needs to be more Topher/Claire fics out there! They are one of the most underappreciated Dollhouse couples (and undoubtedly my favorite couple)… I'm really glad you're enjoying The Aftermath so far :) And thank you, but I think Amy Acker wins the award for most amazing human being on earth. Hmm…. Am I a doll? You may never know… I'm off to have my treatment now…**


	22. Chapter 22: Excuses

Chapter 22 – EXCUSES

Claire awoke to a strange yet comfortable warmth. Her head was resting on someone's chest and she could feel it rising and falling with each breath they took. Raising her head from her comfortable human pillow Claire looked up to see who was sleeping with her. Topher was lying beside her, still fast asleep, his face more peaceful than she'd ever seen it before.

For a moment Claire was tempted to just lie down again and bask in the warmth and comfort that came from sleeping beside another person, but she knew that would be wrong. Despite everything that had happened, and everything that she'd said, part of her was screaming at her to get up and move as far away from Topher as possible. Part of her was still hanging onto its programming which meant that part of her still hated him; even though she didn't want to.

With a sigh Claire rose from the bed, careful not to wake Topher as she removed his arm from where it had been resting just above her hip. She was already conflicted about waking up beside the one person she couldn't abide and him waking up would make things a hundred times worse; not to mention a hundred times more awkward. What would she say? Sure I let you rescue me, comfort me, sleep with me and even kiss me once or twice but I still hate you?

When she'd been unconscious after her surgery someone had changed Claire out of her bloodied clothes and into some of the comfy yoga clothes the actives wore. For a moment Claire wondered whether they'd chosen the clothes as some sort of sick joke, then she realized that the door to her room where all of her clothes were was locked and the key hidden in one of the many books on her shelves. They just hadn't been able to get into her room to get her clothes. Although Claire was definitely more comfortable in the yoga clothes than she would have been in her bloodies ones, she couldn't wait change out of them. Now that she knew that she had once been a doll, wearing the clothes just seemed wrong, as though she was one of the actives again.

Claire still felt a bit dizzy after having been lying down for so long and she stumbled slightly as she made her way to the bookshelves to retrieve her room key. She grabbed onto one of the shelves to right herself then froze as she heard a noise behind her. She slowly turned around, expecting to see Alpha standing right behind her but the only person there was Topher who was sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, woken by the sound of her almost falling over.

"Claire, what are you doing?" he asked, then he noticed the book she was holding in her hands. "I'm sure any reading you have to do can wait until you've recovered. Being attacked by a psycho maniac is a perfectly good excuse for not having your reports done on time," Topher joked. Then he took in her petrified face and his grin faded. "What's wrong? Are you ok?" he asked as he got up and rushed over to her.

Claire shook the thoughts of Alpha and his scalpel from her mind.

"I'm not that obsessed with my work," she replied with a carefully faked smile, "I was just getting my key to my room."

"Got tired of that bed have you?" he asked, gesturing towards the bed in the middle of the room, the rumpled sheets reminding her that only a few moments ago they'd both been sleeping there. "And there I thought that it was really comfortable," he continued, his mouth twitching in a smirk. Claire swatted him with the book she was, trying not to laugh at his jibes or his crazy bed hair. This banter was much more comfortable than giving way to her true fears lurking behind the calm mask that she wore.

"Seriously," she replied, forcing her features into a more sincere expression, "No one can know about this."

"About what?" Topher asked, his grin indicating that he knew exactly what she was talking about.

"You know what I mean."

"I really don't know," he said, his look of confusion so obviously fake.

"You're going to make me say it aren't you," Claire sighed frustratedly. "No one can know about us sleeping together. I mean, not sleeping together sleeping together just, you know, sleeping, together. And that sentence made absolutely no sense…" she trailed off. Topher smiled and opened his mouth to begin his witty reply.

"Topher," Claire warned, her expression fully serious with no sign of the smile she'd been trying to hide before, "I just can't deal with this right now."

Thankfully Topher realized that she was no longer in the mode to joke around with him and a concerned expression stole over his face again.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean…" he murmured.

"No, it's ok," she replied. "It's just with everything that's happened I can hardly think straight. I worry that when I turn around Alpha's going to be there, even though I know he's not. I worry that my thoughts aren't my own. I worry that I'm going to have to go back to being an active because my contract wasn't complete. Also, it doesn't help that in these clothes I feel like I actually am an active."

"I think you look good," Topher replied, then he looked away quickly, a slight blush tingeing his cheeks.

"Um… Thanks," Claire murmured awkwardly.

She looked down at the book in her hands and removed the key from inside the front cover.

"I'm just going to go change," she told him.

"Are you sure you'll be ok?" he asked, eyeing her pale complexion and firm hold on the bookshelf which really was the only thing keeping her upright. "I mean, I don't want you fainting in there where there's no one to notice."

"I'll be fine," she replied, rolling her eyes at his constant worrying. "You can wait here for me if you want, just to make sure I come back alive," she called back as she fought through her dizziness and walked towards the door at the back of the room.

As Claire walked into the corridor and turned to shut the door behind her she saw Topher walk back over to the bed and sit down to wait for her. It was strange to have a conversation with him where they didn't argue the way they always had. She reasoned that it was only natural for her to see everything in a different light after what had happened with Alpha and Topher looking after her. She still felt tinges of the deep seated hatred he'd programmed into her, though she could feel that the hatred wasn't genuine. It was easier to force the hatred to the back of her mind now that she knew it was just part of her imprint. She wouldn't let her imprint tell her who to be and what to think, she was a person and she could choose for herself.

Claire knew that she couldn't keep on living at the Dollhouse. Everything was different now that she knew she was a doll. Already she was wondering who else knew and whether they'd all been hiding it from her. She knew that, from now on, every time she talked to someone she'd wonder if they had been in on it. Of course Adelle and Topher had known; but had everyone else?

As soon as Claire entered her room she changed out of the clothes she was wearing and into one of her dresses. Then she bent down and took a suitcase out of the bottom of her cupboard and began putting all of her clothes and belongings into it. She didn't have much so it didn't take very long. When she'd packed everything in she looked around for her doctor's coat, wondering where it was. Then she realized that it was probably with her other clothes, having the blood cleaned out of it. She zipped her suitcase shut anyway. She wouldn't be needing the coat once she'd left. She would be able to be whoever she wanted, not the Dollhouse doctor, not the ex-active. She would be able to be who ever she wanted to be.

Taking one last look around the room that had been her home for the last few years, Claire picked up her suitcase and left, turning off the lights and shutting the door behind her. Then she made her way back out into her office.

When she entered the office, Topher stood up from where he'd been sitting on the bed. Claire had forgot that he was waiting for her and she realized that her would undoubtedly not want her to leave. Maybe she should have waited until he was gone to pack her suitcase. Leaving was going to be much harder this way.

"You took a while," Topher said, "I was about to come and check on you." Then he came closer and noticed the suitcase she was carrying. "What's that for?" he asked, "Are you going somewhere?"

"I'm leaving," Claire replied softly.

"You're leaving?" Topher asked, his eyes wide. "Why? Where are you going?"

"I don't know. Any where but here really."

"Is it because of what happened? Finding out about who you were?"

"Partly, but it's not just that. I can't really explain, I just have get out of here. I'm tired of making up excuses for why I should stay. I've just reached the point where I've run out of excuses."

"It's my fault," Topher murmured.

"No, it's not your fault," Claire replied, setting her suitcase down and reaching out to take his hand. He looked down at their hands and then slowly up at her, desperation and hurt shining in his eyes. For a moment Claire almost reconsidered as her determination faltered. It would be so easy to let this whole idea go and just unpack her suitcase again. She pushed away the moment of weakness and gave Topher an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry I -" Topher leant in and snatched her lips in a frantic kiss. His hands moved to her waist and hers to his shoulders as their tongues danced. The kiss felt so right and Claire wondered if she could just kiss him forever, and not worry about Alpha or about her past or about her plans to leave the Dollhouse. She moved her hands up to his head, running them through his hair, making it even more messy than before.

Then Claire realized what she was doing. Topher Brink was kissing her and she was kissing him back. This was wrong. This was so, so wrong. She pulled out of the kiss and they both stood panting for a moment.

"Please," Topher whispered, "Please stay."

Claire felt unbearably conflicted and tears welled in her eyes as she shook her head slightly with indecision.

"I can't," she finally replied. Then she gave him one last lingering look before she turned away, picked up her suitcase and walked out the door.

**Note:**

**The Aftermath now has a tumblr blog! Yay! And on it I've been asked, multiple times, if it is okay to read The Aftermath having not seen all of Dollhouse. For starters, this story most definitely contains spoilers for all of Dollhouse. And I mean huge spoilers right from Ghost up to Epitaph Two. As the story goes on I will be drawing more elements from the show, especially plotlines from season 2. It will be hard to understand the later chapters if you haven't seen season 2, especially because I'm not going to go into deep explanations of elements of the plotline that were already covered in season 2. So, in short, you can read The Aftermath having not seen all of Dollhouse but it will most definitely spoil the show for you (and it's a great show so I don't recommend you spoil it for yourself) and will probably be hard to follow. This fanfic isn't going to go away so if you haven't seen the whole show stop reading here, watch the show and come back later :)**


	23. Chapter 23: Offer

Chapter 23 – Offer

Claire quickly realized that leaving through the front door would be impossible if she didn't want to bump into anyone while she made her escape. She hadn't exactly gone to DeWitt and handed in her resignation or even told her that she was leaving. It had been a spur of the moment decision and now Claire was almost regretting it as she made her way towards one of the more inconspicuous back exits.

She could still turn back, but she was determined. She just couldn't stay in the Dollhouse know that she had once been a doll. Every day, treating the actives would be a living reminder of how she had once been amongst them; slept in the pods and sat in the chair; all with a blank expression, not knowing who she was. The only way to escape it all was to leave.

Claire was reaching for the door that lead to the outside world when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around, expecting to see Topher, chasing after her in an attempt to make her stay; but, to her surprise, it was Boyd standing there.

"Claire, what are you doing?" he asked, then he looked down at her suitcase. "Where are you going?"

"I have to leave. You understand," Claire replied, knowing that Boyd, having become head of security, would undoubtedly know about her past, even if he hadn't before he'd been promoted.

"I do, I understand," Boyd replied gravely. "But where will you stay? I thought you lived here."

Claire suddenly realized that her spontaneous plan wasn't very well thought out. Having lived inside the Dollhouse for so long, she didn't own a house in the outside world and, with her phobia of crowds and open spaces, she would have a hard time perusing the city for a hotel to stay at. Not to mention the fact that it would be easy for DeWitt to find her if she stayed in a hotel. After all, there wouldn't be many other women with scarred faces looking for a place to stay. All they had to do was ask around and they would find her; and knowing DeWitt's numerous connections with people in high places, it wouldn't take them long to find her at all.

"I've got nowhere to go," she murmured desolately, dropping her suitcase to the floor with a thunk. "I thought I could just leave but I have nowhere I can go. Maybe I do belong here after all."

"Well," Boyd began, "If you're looking for a place to stay you could stay with me… If you want." Claire looked up at him in surprise. That was the last thing she had been expecting.

"I couldn't," she replied, "I mean, I don't know how long it would be until I could find my own place and I don't want to –"

"Claire, don't worry," Boyd interrupted, "You can stay for as long as you want. I really don't mind."

"Well, okay," Clare conceded. "But as soon as you want me to leave just tell me." Boyd just shook his head and gave her a smile.

"So, should we leave now?" he asked.

Claire turned back to take one last look at the Dollhouse. A small part of her hoped that Topher would come running round the corner, begging her to stay, because she wasn't really sure if this was the right decision. When no one came Claire sighed and turned away before nodding shakily to Boyd. Boyd opened the door for her and she walked out into the corridor, forcing herself not to give in to her fears and run back into the safety of the Dollhouse.

Boyd insisted on driving Claire to his house to show her where it was and get her settled in. She resisted, but when she protested that she had her own car in the staff car park he argued that she hadn't used it in so long that it was probably in need of a good service before it was even roadworthy and she gave up, too tired to argue with him. While Boyd drove Claire looked out the window at the scenery flashing past. It had been so long since she'd been outside that the trees and sunlight seemed strangely different to the comforting low lighting and Zen feel of the Dollhouse. Children played in parks, parents pushed babies in strollers and couples walked along hand in hand, completely oblivious of the secret world that lay beneath their feet.

The car trip didn't take long because Boyd's home wasn't far from the Dollhouse. They drove up to an expensive looking apartment building and then continued into the car park. Then Boyd and Claire got out, leaving the car to be parked by the valet who walked across the car park towards them giving Claire and her small suitcase a curious look. Boyd led Claire to a nearby elevator, gallantly insisting on carrying her suitcase for her, even though it wasn't at all heavy. If she'd felt up to it she would have protested, but it was just easier to go along with him.

When Boyd pushed open the double doors leading into his lavish apartment Claire couldn't help but gasp. It was larger than any apartment she'd ever seen before with a huge glass window looking out over the city from the impressive height of fifty floors up. The room was sparsely yet tastefully furnished with a sleek modern feel so unlike the natural feel of the Dollhouse.

"This place is amazing!" she whispered, turning to Boyd.

"Well I can only afford it thanks to the small fortune the Dollhouse pays me, back in my police days I was living in a dank one room apartment. This is certainly an upgrade," he joked, leading her down a corridor and into the guest room.

"This will be your room," he told her, setting her suitcase down on the bed. "I probably won't be here most of the time, seeing as I have to be at the Dollhouse mostly twenty-four-seven, but you're welcome to eat anything you want out of the fridge and there's always the library.

"You have a library?" Claire asked, astonished. Boyd led her to the door at the end of the corridor and opened it to reveal a room that seemed to be the incarnation of Claire's wildest dreams. The two side walls of the room were covered top to toe in books with ladders attached to help reach the ones on the top shelves, while the wall opposite the door featured yet another large glass window looking out over the cityscape. A comfy looking armchair sat beneath a reading lamp in one corner while a desk and chair sat in the other corner.

"I could spend all day in here," Claire said with a smile.

"You can if you want," Boyd replied. Claire turned to thank him again but was cut off when his mobile phone rang.

She watched Boyd answer the phone and his expression turn from relaxed to serious as he listened to the person on the other end. 'Who is it?' she mouthed, giving him a quizzical look. 'Topher' he mouthed back. Claire felt her heart jump in her chest and she carefully calmed herself so that her expression wouldn't convey any wayward emotions. She didn't know how she felt about Topher, especially after spending last night using him as her pillow.

"Claire's left?" she heard Boyd ask and she turned to him in horror. She shook her head violently mouthing at him to not tell Topher that she was there. "I don't know where she's gone," Boyd told Topher, "Should I?" Claire watched wide eyed as Boyd listened to Topher's response. If she strained her ears she could just hear Topher's tinny sounding voice coming from the phone but she couldn't make out what he was saying. "No don't worry," Boyd counseled. "I'll come in now and we'll figure it out," he finished before hanging up.

"I take it you want me to keep it a secret that you're staying here then?" Boyd asked, amused by her reaction to the phone call.

"I'd appreciate that, yes," Claire replied, feeling a slight blush creep across her cheeks, knowing how panicked she must have looked.

"Well, I have to go back in, but I should be back later, around nine o'clock," Boyd told her as he turned to leave.

Left alone in the house, Claire began to explore, starting with the library. Boyd had an impressive collection of books, obviously funded by his generous Dollhouse salary. She decided to start on one side of the room and make her way to the other, looking through the books for ones she wanted to read. She soon came across many interesting book that she never would have thought Boyd would be interested in and she realized how little she knew about him, or anyone who worked at the Dollhouse for that matter. Not bothering to use the ladder, Claire stretched up onto her tippy toes trying to reach a book that was just out of easy reach.

As she stretched she felt a sudden flash of pain and a bright light blinded her, forcing her to stagger over to the armchair. She gripped her head in pain as a roaring headache rushed over her and images flashed behind her eyes.

_She saw everything as though she were trapped inside her own head, unable to control her own body. She was dancing provocatively in the beams of a car's headlights. Across the room Alpha was standing before a mostly naked man tied to a chair, a bottle of alcohol dangling from his grasp as he surveyed the man. The man had blood dripping from various wounds._

"_Who are you working with?" Alpha asked. _

"_Nobody," the man gasped. 'I'm not working with anybody," he continued in a strangled whisper._

"_Yeah," Alpha drawled as he walked behind the man and grabbed his head tightly between his hands. "Who was in the vans?"_

"_Vans? I didn't see any vans," the man whimpered. Alpha let go of his head and began to walk away, towards Claire who was still dancing. "Did you see vans?" the man cried desperately._

"_Lars, it's sad, it's sad how you lie, I can smell it," Alpha replied, leaning in closer to the man's face. "You think that I have survived this long, on the run, without being able to tell who's lying to me," he continued as the man's bottom lip quivered, causing blood to drip down his chin. _

_Alpha poured some of the alcohol from the bottle he was holding over the man's naked torso, causing him to scream out in pain as the burning liquid entered his wounds. Claire watched as Alpha took a swig from the bottle. "You're hiding something," he continued. "I can see it in your eyes," he said, leaning down that that his face was level with the man's. _

"_No," the man whispered. _

"_Then I will cut it out," Alpha yelled and he suddenly leapt into action, stepping forward and drawing a knife which he held centimeters away from the man's left eye. The man panicked, stuttering as Alpha's free hand gripped his chin tightly, holding his head in place._

"_It's complicated," he gasped desperately, "It's complicated."_

"_Alright," Alpha replied, stepping back and moving the knife away from the man's face. "Make it simple." _

_The man's face contorted as he tried not to cry._

"_You're not real," he whispered. _

"_What?" Alpha asked, cocking his head slightly._

"_You and your girlfriend -" The man was cut off as Alpha violently head butted him causing him to cry out in pain._

"_What did you say about my girlfriend?" Alpha asked, his voice dangerously low._

"_You're not real, either one of you," The man cried desperately. "You think you're on a cross-country crime spree, but you're not," he replied, stuttering slightly as he began to laugh almost maniacally. "You think you have a doomed love," he continued. "It's not doomed. It's not even love," he spat. "I paid for this," he gasped, beginning to cry again. "It was supposed to be my fantasy. I just wanted to have a little fun."_

"_A little fun?" Alpha growled. "You wanted to have a little fun? Well are you? Are you having fun Lars?" he shouted._

"_No," the man whimpered. Then Alpha turned around to face Claire who was still dancing in the beams of the car headlights._

"_She's real," he murmured, staring at her, mouth agape. "And that's the last real thing you're ever going to see," he told the man, pointing back towards Claire with the knife he held in his hand. The man began to beg silently, shaking his head frantically. "Crystal," Alpha called out and Claire walked out of the beams of light towards him, her hips swaying in time to the music. _

"_Yeah baby?" she asked, grabbing him by the lapels of his leather vest and pulling him close. She looked into his eyes which seemed almost black in the dark room they were in. Suddenly his eyes flashed with a strange, familiar blue light that blinded her. She felt her body return to her control and she lifted her arm to shield her eyes; but it was too late. The blue light enveloped her and everything went black. _


	24. Chapter 24: Adrift

Chapter 24 – Adrift

When Claire left Topher stood in her office for a long time, thoughts flooding his mind as his brain was working at top speed. He was amazed that Claire had managed to leave the Dollhouse, despite all the counter-programming he'd designed for her imprint. He'd always known that imprinting her with an instinctual distrust for the Dollhouse would make her more likely to try and leave, so he'd programmed in the strongest deterrent possible which made it almost impossible for her to even think about leaving. Topher knew that he shouldn't want Claire to stay; that he should want what was best for her and, if that meant her leaving the Dollhouse, he should just accept it. Despite all this, he couldn't help but wish that he'd thought of something to say at that last moment that that could have made her stay. He understood that she was confused by everything that had happened between them and that the fact that it conflicted with her imprint parameters only made it even harder for her. Especially the kissing. Even Topher's brain couldn't come to terms with that, and he wasn't a conflicted ex-active who'd been recently attacked by a psychopath.

Though she'd taken the key with her, Claire had left the door leading to her room open and Topher wandered in. Her room was bare, totally stripped of any personal belongings that she'd had there. Topher tried to imagine the room the way it would have been while she was staying there, but having never been in her room it was almost impossible. He liked to think that she would have made it her own place, separate from the world of the Dollhouse, filled it with her meager possessions and treated it as a safe haven of sorts. He walked over to the bed and sat down, feeling it give beneath him and he fought the urge to just lay down there and sleep. He was exhausted, despite having slept relatively well the night before, and Claire's bed felt comfortable and inviting, but there was something deeply wrong about the idea of sleeping here.

As Topher stood up from the bed he spotted a photo on the floor beside the bedside table. It was a photo-shopped image of Claire with her nonexistent mother that he'd made when he'd first designed her imprint. He doctored photos like these for all of the actives to make their backgrounds more credible. Usually they put an image of the person and their family in the active's wallet, diary, or pocket, depending on the situation. Topher knew that Claire didn't ever see her family. Her entire family was fictional but her imprint was designed to make her believe that her father was dead, her mother remarried and living in England with her new husband, and her younger sister working as an airhostess and constantly traveling the world. He'd purposely made it so they all lived far away, so even if Claire had wanted to, she would never have been able to meet up with them in person. She'd phoned her mother once a week ever since she became Claire Saunders, and every time she'd unknowingly spoke to a Rossum employee acting as her fictional mother.

Now that she knew her memories were fake, Topher understood why Claire would leave the photograph behind. It would only serve as a reminder of the fact that her life truly wasn't real. Looking closer, Topher realized that in the photo Claire had no scars as it had been taken before she'd come to the Dollhouse, back when she'd been happy and carefree. Topher ran his thumb over her unblemished, smiling face and then carefully ripped the photo down the middle, dropping the half with Claire's 'mother' into the bin by the door. Then he left Claire's bedroom and walked out into her office, purposely closing the door to the corridor behind him so that it locked.

Walking across the main floor and up to his office Topher weaved between actives wandering about and carefully avoided the gazes of handlers looking curiously at his sleep rumpled clothing. Reaching his office after what seemed like ages, Topher pulled Claire's photo out of his pocket and gazed at if for a moment before putting it back and turning to his computer. As much as he tried to work, Topher's overactive brain refused to let him concentrate, constantly distracting him with thoughts of Claire. During one of his many non-work related thought tangents he realized that, as head of security, Boyd should probably be told that Claire had left. Topher wearily reached over to his phone and pressed Boyd's speed dial key. Echo had been acting up so much lately that he'd ended up programming Boyd's number into his phone. The only other people programmed in were DeWitt and Claire, though she didn't know it; and it was probably better that she never found out. Boyd answered after the fifth rings and sounded distracted, taking the time to only briefly answer Topher's questions and promise to come in and sort everything out. Despite Topher's desperate hopes, Boyd had no idea where Claire had gone either.

Eventually Topher gave up on trying to work when the computer screen blurred in front of him and his eyes drifted closed for the thousandth time. Desperate to escape his own thoughts Topher decided to go to bed, something he didn't often do, preferring to work late into the night until he was too exhausted to stay awake a moment longer. To his disappointment, being in bed did nothing to placate his mind which refused to let him sleep, plaguing him with worries about Claire. Whenever he felt himself about to drift off to sleep, another worry would spring to mind and the cycle would start over again. As if it couldn't get any worse, on top of everything he already had to worry about, there was a new dilemma added to the mix.

Topher had known for a while that Adelle was slowly losing control over the Dollhouse, though he had been spending too much of his time worrying about Claire to really consider what that meant in the long term. He knew that it was inevitable that Rossum would step in to save themselves from embarrassment and exposure as the LA Dollhouse fell to pieces. What with Echo acting up and glitching on engagements, Victor, Sierra and Echo grouping and the serial killer mix up, Topher was surprised Rossum hadn't intervened sooner. After the Senator Perrin incident a few weeks ago and Topher's trip to the DC Dollhouse with DeWitt, he'd just assumed that once they were back in LA everything would be under DeWitt's control again. What he hadn't counted on was Harding coming to LA and effectively replacing DeWitt as the head of the house.

Not that he had complained. After all, Harding had funded a number of experimental projects that DeWitt had flat out refused to let him do. Still, when he'd finally finished the plans for his newest device he hadn't gone straight to Harding. Topher had been told many times, mostly by Claire, that he had no morals; but he still knew that going to Harding with his plans for a device that could possibly be extremely dangerous would be a colossal mistake. Instead he'd trusted Adelle with his secret, only for her to betray him in a desperate attempt to get her job back. If it weren't for the fact that she'd called in a favour to organize Claire's operation, he'd still be furious. Though the betrayal stung, that wasn't what worried him. What worried him was the fact that Rossum, the company run by people with even fewer morals than Topher himself, now had full access to technology that could wipe anyone, regardless of whether they had active architecture. Topher was just praying that they hadn't figured out how to make a working model of the device yet. Luckily his plans hadn't been perfected, so the Rossum techs would have to tweak the design a bit before they could create a working product.

To top it all off, then there had been DeWitt's crazy idea of sending Echo, Victor and Sierra to the Attic to gather information about the Rossum mainframe in an attempt to bring them down. To Topher's surprise her plan had actually worked and, although he had often theorized about the Attic and its purpose, they now had actual eye witness accounts about the Rossum mainframe which they could use to their advantage. One of the many strange things that had come to light after Echo's brief stint in the Attic was the fact that Caroline Farrell knew the identity of the head of Rossum. Topher hadn't met many of Rossum's more important employees but Adelle certainly had; yet even she had never met the head of Rossum in the flesh.

Now they had a melee of unexpected people in the Dollhouse, including Echo in her composite, yet relatively sane state, November imprinted as Mellie and Paul Ballard supposedly working alongside them. Topher wasn't sure how stable their little group of rebels really was, but if they had a chance to take down Rossum, they were going to take it. Despite the fact that she'd been there for a while, it was still strange to see Echo wandering around the Dollhouse wearing normal clothes and acting like a relatively normal person, despite the numerous people living inside her head.

Now Topher was wondering if DeWitt had gone insane because, while Topher had been by Claire's bedside, well, more like in her bed, DeWitt sent Victor and Paul to kidnap Bennett Halverson from the DC Dollhouse. The plan was that Topher would work with her to try to restore the Caroline wedge that Alpha had destroyed so that they could imprint Echo as Caroline and have her identify the head of Rossum. Then they would take Rossum down. Topher wasn't exactly sure how the last part of the plan was going to work. A handful of people, even with some of them imprinted with martial arts and combat skills could not possibly defeat an entire corporation that no doubt had sophisticated security systems and any number of imprintable bodies at their disposal. When he'd questioned DeWitt's plan the only reply he'd received had been Adelle's trademark stony glare and an instruction to get to work on repairing Caroline's wedge.

Topher had worked intermittently on repairing the wedge, leaving his office every few hours to go down to check on Claire. At first it had been awkward working with Bennett; them having kidnapped her and all; but after a while Topher had found that having a conversation with someone as intelligent as himself was refreshing. For once he had been able to talk about decompression algorithms and perceptual coding and someone had actually understood him, or at least listened for once. He knew about Bennett's history with Caroline, so he had tried to avoid telling her who was on the wedge. So far she hadn't asked, though he could tell that she was desperate to know who it was. DeWitt had instructed him not to tell her, in fear that if she knew, she might refuse to help restore the wedge and then their plan to bring back Caroline would go down the gurgler.

Topher suddenly realized that Bennett hadn't been in his office when he'd come back upstairs, which he then realised wasn't surprising seeing as he'd slept the night and spent most of the day in Claire's office. No doubt DeWitt had found somewhere for Bennett to sleep while she was staying at the Dollhouse. Though 'imprisoned in the Dollhouse' was probably more accurate. During one of his trips up to his office from Claire's bedside the night before, Topher had taken a half hearted glance at the wedge and seen that Bennett had make quite a bit of progress, but he had been too distracted to make much headway before he'd gone back downstairs. He hadn't given the wedge much consideration after that, being to preoccupied with looking after Claire.

As always, Topher's thoughts had inevitably turned back to Claire. His most pressing worry was over where she'd gone. After all, he knew she didn't ever leave the Dollhouse and she'd even admitted that she didn't really know where she was going. For a brief moment he considered checking the security tapes to see where she'd gone but he decided that if she wanted to leave then he would let her leave. She wasn't an active that he could control or program, she was a person and she could chose for herself now. He just wished she'd chosen to stay.

The memory of their last kiss, rushed yet heartfelt, lingered in Topher's mind. He hadn't kissed her to try and change her mind; he'd just wanted to make sure that she knew how he felt; just in case she never came back. The Dollhouse wouldn't be that same without her. Topher wouldn't be the same without her. It would be strange to work in the Dollhouse knowing that if he looked down at her office, he wouldn't see the familiar flash of white as she walked past the windows. Instead her office would remain dark until DeWitt replaced her or she came back. Though the latter was highly unlikely.

Finally, in the early hours of the morning, Topher finally fell asleep. His body and mind exhaling in relief as the darkness embraced him and the day's worth of tension washed away. The respite didn't last long though and an hour later Topher was already being tortured by his own dreams, twisting and turning, covered in a sheen as Claire haunted his dreams. She was always just out of reach, no matter how fast he ran after her.

**Note:**

**I am SO sorry that this chapter (and most of the previous ones) have taken me so long to write! All of your reviews really inspire me and please feel free to send me one to tell me to hurry up and right the next chapter. There's no better way to make me write than blackmail… Except for bribes! I'm surprised you all keep coming back when it takes me so long to write up the next chapter! Thanks for being the best readers ever! :)**


	25. Chapter 25: Memories

Chapter 25 – Memories

By the time Boyd got back from the Dollhouse it was already midnight and Claire, after only a few hours of reading her eyes had been sore and a few hours after that she'd given up on waiting for him and had made dinner. It was nothing special, just some pasta with a sauce her mother had taught her how to make. Claire had never really liked cooking, when she was still living at home with her parents she'd always preferred to read or even study rather than help cook; but in this case cooking had kept Claire's mind off the weird headache-vision she'd experienced earlier, so she was grateful that she'd at least learnt how to cook pasta. She'd decided not to tell Boyd about her vision or what ever it was. He'd only worry and there wasn't anything he could do about it anyway, unless he had a MRI hidden someone in his humongous apartment. Next door to the library maybe?

As she sat down at the dinner table with Boyd, Claire tried act as though everything was normal, or as normal as it could possibly be considering the unbelievable lives they both led.

"So what happened when you went back in?" Claire asked, when they'd both sat down, too impatient even though she knew she should at least let Boyd settle in first.

"Well, DeWitt was absolutely unflustered by the whole situation, as usual and Topher was in a hysterical panic, also as usual," Boyd replied, jokingly. Then he looked up from his pasta and saw that, rather than laughing, Claire's face had fallen. She quickly tried to muster up a smile but she couldn't, images of a hysterical Topher clouding her thoughts. "Sorry," Boyd continued. "I managed to replace the sections of security tapes that showed us leaving together before they had a chance to check them, so they won't be able to track you down. DeWitt didn't seem overly worried about you, it was almost like she had been expecting you to leave. I swear that woman sees and knows everything that goes on in that house," Boyd mused. "But Topher was a mess. He was taking it really hard for some reason." Claire looked away, unwilling to meet Boyd's eyes; he'd always been able to read her and she was afraid that if she met his gaze he would see the truth there and she wasn't ready for the truth to be out yet. There was something about the night she and Topher had spent together that was so private the she just had to keep it a secret. Not because she'd enjoyed it. Of course not. It had been… A moment of weakness and that was all.

"Maybe he was just upset that one of his precious creations actually managed escape that hell hole," Claire finally replied bitterly. Boyd seemed to sense that it was a sensitive topic for her so he let it drop, resulting in an awkward silence as each of them tried to think of something to say.

Suddenly Claire felt a strange pressure building in her head and she reached out to hold onto the table to steady herself as her vision flared white. She tried to suppress it, trying to force her eyes to stay open; but despite her efforts she still caught glimpses of a scene.

_Alpha was holding onto Claire's shoulders as she ran the knife over the man's neck, goose bumps erupting on his skin as the knife trailed downwards. Then there was a deafening crash and a fireball erupted, as the door to the room they were in was blown open. Claire backed away from the man as Alpha ran towards the door and the people coming in. He growled violently as he charged, only to be caught in the tight grasp of two men carrying guns. They pushed up against the wall and immobilized him as more people came rushing in. Claire stepped forward out of the shadows, holding the knife before he and a middle aged woman with short black hair stepped out from among the ranks of gun wielding men to walk towards Claire._

"_Whiskey, would you like a treatment?" she asked, holding out her hand to stop Claire from getting any closer with her knife._

_Claire felt her hand lower, the hand holding the knife dropping to her side as she considered the woman before her._

"_Yes please," she heard herself reply. Across the room Alpha was still trying to escape the men restraining him. Then a man Claire didn't know rushed over and grabbed onto him._

"_Alpha," he shouted, "treatment." Alpha sank down against the wall._

"_Yeah, let's do that instead," he replied. The woman in front of Claire spoke again, trying to turn her away from Alpha._

"_Let's go to the van, okay?" she instructed. _

"_Thanks for the ride," Claire heard herself drawl as she was led from the room, leaving the sobbing, bloody man behind her._

_The woman led Claire out of the dark room and into the light outside. Claire blinked a few times, trying to adjust her eyes to the light; but it only grew brighter until it was blinding her. She tried to close her eyes but she couldn't and before she could scream out for help everything faded to black._

Claire opened her eyes and held on to the table as she gasped and tried to quell the overwhelming dizziness.

"Claire? Claire, are you okay?" she heard Boyd's anxious voice asking, sounding muffled at first but getting steadily louder as the strange buzzing in her ears faded away.

"It's nothing. I'm alright," she murmured, blinking to clear her vision of dark spots that gathered in the corner of her vision, gradually beginning to feel better.

"What was that? Tell me what happened," Boyd demanded, rushing over to her as if he was worried she might collapse at any moment.

"I'm not sure really, but the same thing happened earlier. There was this really bright light and then I saw… I saw myself. I saw myself doing horrible things. It was like I was me but I was someone else. Sorry, I'm not explaining this very well, it's hard to understand," Claire replied. Boyd's look of confusion faded be he still continued to gaze at her worriedly.

"I've know what it was," he said solemnly. "Sometimes when something conflicts with an imprint, like a new memory that goes against the programmed ones or someone makes an active question their past, their mind can't sustain the imprint and they have flashbacks to past memories." Claire looked at him warily and he took her silence as encouragement to continue. "It's happened before to some of the actives; and, to be truthful, I'm surprised it hasn't happened to you already. Finding out that you were a doll does more than just go against your imprint, I'm surprised it's held up this long. Not to mention the fact that long term and permanent imprints are more susceptible to glitches to begin with."

Claire didn't find it hard to believe what Boyd was telling her. She'd seen things go wrong with imprints, like the many times when Echo had behaved erratically while on engagements. If the slightest suggestion of something that conflicted the imprint could cause an active to have flashbacks then it had only been a matter of time before her new knowledge about her life undermined her programming.

"How do we fix it?" she asked.

"Well, the only way I've seen it fixed is when the active gets wiped," Boyd replied. Claire gave him a look of utter horror.

"I am not going in that chair. There is nothing that could ever make me. I don't care if I have to live with flashbacks my whole life I am never trusting that chair or Topher Brink again," she insisted.

"I don't know how we can fix it then," Boyd responded. "How about if I took you in. I know how to work the chair, it was one of the first things I had to learn when I became head of security. I could do the wipe and then re-imprint you as Claire."

"Maybe," Claire conceded. "But then I would forget."

"Forget what?" Boyd asked.

"I'd forget everything that's happened," Claire whispered. "I wouldn't know I was a doll and I wouldn't remember everything that's happened in the past few days. I can't do that. I can't go back to not knowing."

"You wouldn't have to," Boyd reassured. "After Alpha attacked you again Topher made Adelle let him scan you and update your imprint. He wanted you to be able to remember." Claire stared at Boyd in disbelief. First she felt utter outrage at the fact that Topher had scanned her brain without her knowledge. Then, when she thought about it further, she found herself unable to understand why Topher would have done scanned her anyway. Surely it would have been easier for him if she had just forgotten everything that had happened and gone back to being Claire the house doctor, oblivious of her past.

As much as Claire distrusted the chair and all of the technology at the Dollhouse she knew that she couldn't live with the blinding pain of the flashbacks for the rest of her life. Anyway, she'd left the Dollhouse to start a new life and forget all about the Dollhouse and she could hardly do that when she was having flashbacks to past imprints every few hours.

"I'll go, so long as you loop the video tapes so they don't see us," Claire finally conceded. Boyd gave her a smile and stood up, grasping her hand to help her up.  
>"We should go in now, before the actives start coming in from their engagements in the morning, otherwise there's no way we'll be able to use the chair without anyone noticing," Boyd instructed as he grabbed his coat from where it had been hanging over the side of the couch. Claire hesitated for a moment. While she'd decided to go back in she wasn't ready to go right that minute. She wanted a few hours or maybe a few days to psych herself into going back to the Dollhouse; but when Boyd called back to her from outside she steeled herself and decided that it was now or never. Then she followed Boyd out the door, the sound of the door clicking shut echoing ominously through the empty corridor as Claire wondered if she was doing the right thing.<p>

They drove to the Dollhouse silence as Claire internally debated her decision to go back in the chair. What if it went wrong and she was stuck as a blank slate forever? Did she really want to risk it? She wasn't worried about whether Boyd was capable of performing the wipe, it was the technology she was afraid of. If Boyd said he'd learnt how to use the chair then she didn't doubt him, and he was probably the only person she trusted inside the Dollhouse. Everyone else had too many ulterior motives and conflictions to be trusted with what was effectively her life.

The street lights shone bright in the dark though the grey-blue tinge peeking over the horizon told Claire that it would soon be dawn. She gazed out the window at the houses and parked cars blurring past and wondered if this would be the last time she ever saw them. During her time living at the Dollhouse she'd hardly ever gone outside, due to her fear of open spaces and crowds, but sitting in the car looking out on the world made Claire feel quite comfortable, if a little wistful. She would give anything to be fast asleep in one of those houses, maybe with a husband and kids; safe in the knowledge that the next day she would get up, kiss her husband goodbye, drop the kids at school and go to work and everything would be normal. Claire life, though exciting and interesting at times, was definitely not normal.

When they reached the Dollhouse Boyd led Claire in through a back door she'd never used before which brought them into onto the landing leading to Topher's office. Boyd whispered to Claire to stay put while he checked to see if anyone was in the imprinting room and Claire stood in the hidden nook and looked out over the artificially darkened Dollhouse while she waited for Boyd to return. She could just see her office, empty with all its lights turned off. So they hadn't replaced her yet. She felt a strange wave of satisfaction, although she knew that she would be replaced eventually; it was only a matter of time. There were no actives on the main floor which was hardly surprising considering it was still in the very early hours of the morning. All the actives in the house were safe in their pods and those on engagements would likely not return until a more convenient hour of the morning. Claire just had to hope that no one would see her, because she wasn't planning on staying.

A hand touched Claire's shoulder and she jumped in shock, muscles tensing as her instinctual flight or fight response kicked in; but when she turned around it was only Boyd who gestured to her to move into Topher's office. This was the dangerous part. With Topher sleeping so close by, only a few meters away in the server room, any noise could wake him up; and Claire didn't know if she'd be able to leave him a second time. She would only be able to do this if it was a quick in and out job. No heartfelt discussions. No tears and definitely no kisses.

Despite the fact that the lights were off and Topher wasn't in his office there was still a mélange of flashing lights and soft beeping noises as the machines whirred quietly to themselves. As Boyd eased open the door to the imprint room Claire's eyes alighted on Topher's computer. For a moment, just a moment, she considered looking up her original personality. But what would she do then? Re-imprint herself? Smash her original wedge? She reached out, her fingertips brushing the mouse, moving it just enough to cause the screen to light up. The computer had only been asleep and, to Claire's equal relief and dismay, it reverted to the log in screen which required a password. Claire wondered whether, if she'd known the password, she would have kept going and looked herself up; but there was no time for pondering what might have been as Boyd grasped her hand and pulled her into the imprint room.

"We don't have much time," he hissed. "We have to do it now." Suddenly Claire didn't know if she could do it. The chair looked so harmless, just chunks of metal bolted together with a few blue lights built in; but somehow it caused paralyzing fear to well up inside her.

"I can't," she whispered, backing away until she was pressed against the wall, as far away from the chair as she could get.

"You have to," Boyd insisted, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back towards the chair. Claire knew the only reason he was being forceful was because he was worried that if they took too long, they would be caught; but his strong hand wrapped around her wrist scared her slightly. Then Boyd took a deep calming breath and gave her a slight smile.

"Everything's going to be alright. Just sit in the chair and this will all be over before you know it," he reassured. Claire grasped the chair's arm rests, her fingers turning white with the strength of her grip as the lowered herself into the chair. She sat still for a moment, preparing herself before she leant her head back against the headrest.

"Ready?" Boyd asked, turning towards the controls. Claire's voice caught in her throat as she tried to reply so she settled for a nod instead. Boyd pushed a myriad of buttons with a sense of confidence and purpose that reassured Claire that he knew what he was doing. Then the chair began to hum beneath her as it slowly lowered her into a horizontal position. Claire had a brief moment of panic where, for a second, she was fully prepared to leap out of the chair and flee, but she quelled her fear and grasped the armrests even tighter.

The blue lighted turned on and Claire gasped as she felt the strange sensation of being pulled away from herself. She imagined that this was what an out of body experience would feel like as she drifted out of her body and faded away into nothingness. She couldn't see or feel and the constant hum of the chair was replaced by nothingness as Boyd began to work.


	26. Chapter 26: Sentimentality

Chapter 26 – Sentimentality

The chair rose slowly, whirring mechanically as Claire opened her eyes, blinking away the blurriness that clouded her vision. She didn't feel any different. Maybe it hadn't worked, maybe Boyd hadn't been able to fix her. She felt a spike of anxiety as she looked up to see Boyd standing beside her, his controlled expression revealing nothing about the outcome of the wipe.

"Is it done? Did you fix it?" she asked, standing up hurriedly, unwilling to sit in the chair for any longer than she had to. Boyd gave her a calming smile.

"It went fine," he replied. "I refreshed your imprint which should help it hold in place so I'm pretty sure you won't have any more headaches or flashbacks." Claire smiled slightly back at him before remembering where they were and glancing worriedly at the door, fear overriding all her relief over their success.

"No one came in?" she asked anxiously.

"No," Boyd replied soothingly, "Everything went exactly as planned."

Claire took a moment to look at the chair, amazed that she'd had the courage to sit in it again. As much as she hated and feared the mechanical monstrosity, it was a relief to know that she wouldn't be having any more of those horrible flashbacks any time soon. She reached out to put her hand on one of the arm rests, touching the machine lightly, as she would a stranger's dog, unsure whether it would bite her or not.

"You ready to go?" Boyd asked, interrupting her reverie. "We've got to get out of here before people start waking up and actives start coming in for treatments."

"It's strange," Claire replied, "until now I wouldn't have thought -" She was cut of as Boyd reached over and covered her mouth with his hand, his eyes wide. Claire stared at him confusedly, reaching up to pry his hand away, but he shook his head violently and pointed to the door that led to the balcony. Through the opaque door, Claire could see a blurry figure approaching, walking along the balcony towards them. Boyd moved his hand away from her mouth and pointed towards the door to the office. They both moved towards it, trying to open the door to Topher's office as quietly and as quickly as they could. Once they were through, Boyd and Claire ran back to the alcove they had hidden in before.

Leaning forward slightly, poking her head just out of the alcove, Claire could see a shape moving behind the opaque doors to the imprint room. She took one step out of the alcove, trying to get a bit closer so that she could see who was in the other room. She didn't really know why she was so desperate to know who it was. Part of her secretly wished that it would be Topher and that he would see her and somehow convince her to come back to the Dollhouse, while another part of her chided her for having those thoughts. Before Claire could get any closer Boyd grabbed her tightly by the wrist and pulled her back into the alcove beside him. She gave him a bemused look but he only put a finger to his lips in response. A moment later Claire heard footsteps coming up the main stairs to the landing and realized why Boyd had pulled her back. As Ivy walked past the alcove Boyd pulled Claire back with him as he hid deeper in the recess of the alcove. Claire struggled slightly against his grip on her arm, feeling claustrophobic pressed against him in such a confined space. Surely he didn't have to stand so close to her?

The door connecting Topher's office to the landing clicked shut and the noise of Ivy's heels ceased as she entered the carpeted room. Boyd sighed in relief, finally releasing his grip on her arm and Claire moved as far away from him as she could, giving him a slight scowl as she rubbed the red handprint mark on her arm.

"We should go," he whispered, glancing anxiously out at the landing as if he expected someone else to walk past at any minute.

"Not yet," Claire hissed back, "There's something I have to get first." Boyd gave her an exasperated look and she didn't doubt that if they could raise their voices above a whisper he'd be close to shouting by now.

"What could you possibly need to get that's so important that it's worth risking getting caught?" he asked. "This was meant to be a quick in and out job, not a leisurely day trip."

Claire knew that he would only laugh if she told him that she needed to go back for her doctor's coat. Even though she knew that she wasn't a real certified doctor, she just didn't feel right without it.

"We won't get caught," Claire deflected, trying to reassure him as she moved away from him towards the landing. She jolted to a halt as Boyd grabbed her arm yet again and she forced back the urge to slap his hand away before turning back to face him.

"There are security cameras all over the place," he hissed, "We'll get caught."

"And what, there weren't any security camera's in Topher's office or the imprint room?" Claire asked skeptically. "You're going to have to loop the footage on them anyway so what difference does one little trip down to my office make?"

"How about I go and get whatever it is for you," Boyd offered testily, obviously losing his patience. Claire ignored him and gave him a steely look, silently daring him to grab her again as she stepped out of the alcove.

She stood for a few seconds on the landing, looking around to make sure that no one would see her. She knew Ivy was in Topher's office or the imprint room and she assumed that the person she and Boyd seen approaching the imprint room before was an active. The actives not on engagements should still be in their pods seeing as it was still very early morning; the handlers would either be monitoring their actives out on engagements or elsewhere while their dolls were at the house and Adelle would undoubtedly be in her office. That only left one person. The one person Claire desperately didn't want to bump into. Topher Brink.

Standing on the landing Claire could see the door to her office and she figured that if she made a quick dash down the stairs and across the main floor she wouldn't be seen unless Ivy or Topher happened to look directly out of the window and down at her. She could take that chance. Claire turned back to Boyd and beckoned for him to follow her but he shook his head in reply.

"We can't risk me being caught with you," he whispered. "Then they'll know where you've been staying. I'll see you back here. Don't get caught!" Claire gave him a nod in reply and then turned and ran down the stairs to her office, dashing across the main floor not quite as silently as she'd have liked in a desperate attempt not to be seen.

When she reached her office Claire ducked inside and pulled the door shut behind her, panting slightly from her run and the adrenaline coursing through her veins. The lights were off in her office and despite the dark making it almost impossible to see, Claire didn't dare turn them on in fear that someone would see the light and come to investigate. Just to check that she hadn't been seen, Claire walked over to one of the windows and peered out for a second before ducking away. During her first glance she ascertained that the main floor was still empty, there were no dolls or handlers around who could have seen her and, thankfully, there was no sign of Adelle or Topher. During Claire's second glance her eyes were irreparably drawn up to Topher's office which she could see clearly into through the large glass window. Topher was sitting at his disk with a woman Claire didn't know and the woman was staring right at her.

Claire jumped back in fright, almost knocking over a tray table of bandages in her haste. She tried to convince herself that the woman hadn't been staring at her, she'd just glanced Claire's way at that particular second and that when she looked out again, the woman would be looking away. Claire stepped forward, peering out the window for a third time and felt her heart stop as the woman's inquisitive gaze locked on her again. For a moment Claire panicked. It was all over, she'd been caught. There was no way she'd ever be able to leave the Dollhouse now. But, too her surprise, the woman put a finger to her lips before saying something to Topher, standing up and leaving the office to walk down to Claire's.

The minutes while the woman made her way across the main floor were possibly the most nerve wracking minutes of Claire's entire life. She knew that if Boyd was with her he'd be telling her to run; but Claire wasn't entirely sure that the woman was going to turn her in to security, so she held her ground. A few tense seconds later, the door to the office slid open and the woman came in, closing the door quietly behind her. She reached out to turn on the light.

"No!" Claire shouted before clasping a hand over her mouth as she realized how loud she'd yelled. The woman didn't seemed worried though as she came closer to Claire, moving into the patch of light coming through the window which allowed Claire to see her more clearly.

The woman had brown curly hair that lightened at the tips where it rested just past her shoulders. Her eyes were a deep chocolate brown and, together with her perfect oval face and extraordinary complexion, Claire thought, for a moment, that the woman was a doll.

"Who are you?" Claire asked.

"I could ask you the same question," the woman replied, matter-of-factly." Claire hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to trust this woman and tell her who she was. They stood for a few moments in silence and then the woman seemed to realized that Claire wasn't going to reveal anything.

"I'm Bennett Halverson," the woman said, breaking the ice. "And I assume you're Claire Saunders, the doctor?" Claire looked at her in astonishment, unsure how the woman knew who she was. Surely she'd remember if she had met this woman before. Unless her memory of Bennett was yet another one of those that Topher had taken away from her when she had become an active or later when she'd become Claire Saunders.

"How do you know who I am?" Claire asked warily.

"I've heard a lot about you," Bennett replied cryptically.

"From who?" Claire asked, unsettled by the fact that this woman who she was ninety-nine percent sure she'd never met before knew so much about her.

"From Ms. DeWitt," Bennett replied, "and Topher". Claire felt a wave of self-hatred at the way her heart flipped in her chest at the sound of Topher's name.

"What have you heard about me exactly?" Claire questioned, desperate to turn the topic away from Topher but still achingly curious about what Bennett knew.

"Well for one I was told that you'd left," Bennett replied. "What are you doing here?" Claire looked down sheepishly before replying.

"I had to come back for something," she murmured.

"Something important?" Bennett asked, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that the ex-house doctor was lurking around her office in the dark in the early hours of the morning.

"It's important to me," Claire replied while surreptitiously looking around for her coat.

As nice as this Bennett woman seemed, Claire was still unsure whether Bennett would turn her in and she didn't want to spend any more time in the Dollhouse than she had to. Any minute someone could walk past and catch a glimpse of Claire through one of the windows and then she would be trapped in the Dollhouse. She hardly thought that Adelle would just let her leave again, after all, she was an active and she was living in the body of someone who would one day want it back. Despite the fact that she'd never fulfilled her contract, Adelle still had an obligation to whoever Claire had been, seeing as she'd promised that after five years the woman would get her body back; but instead Claire had stolen it away.

"Is it in here?" Bennett inquired, breaking Claire out of her reverie. "The thing you're looking for, is it in here?" Bennett elaborated when Claire looked up at her in confusion, having lost track of the conversation entirely.

"It's in here somewhere," Claire replied.

"I could help you look, if you want," Bennett replied, seeming as though she genuinely wanted to help her. Yet again Claire wondered what Topher had told Bennett about her.

"I guess," Claire replied, uncertainly. Even though she wasn't sure if Bennett had a hidden agenda, two pairs of eyes searching for her coat would be more efficient than if she just searched for it on her own.

"It's stupid," Claire began, "But I'm looking for my doctors coat." She began to describe it but Bennett interrupted her.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "It's not in here."

"What do you mean? How do you know it's not in here?" Claire asked, baffled.

"I've seen it, it's upstairs, in Topher's office," Bennett explained.

"In Topher's office?" Claire asked, surprised. She wasn't sure why the idea of Topher having her coat unsettled her. It wasn't that it upset her, it was just a strange thought that he would have purposely kept her coat. They hadn't parted on the best of terms, that was for sure, so it seemed strange that he would feel the need to keep something of hers.

Claire felt her stomach sink as she realized that there was no way that she was going to be able to retrieve her coat from Topher's office without being caught and the situation was made worse by the fact that it was in the one place she desperately didn't want to go.

"I'm guessing you don't want to be seen, seeing as you're hiding out down here, so I suppose you don't want to go up there, do you?" Bennett asked, intuitively. "I could go and get it for you, if you want."

For all Claire knew as soon as Bennett left the room she would call security, or Adelle, or Topher and tell them that Claire was back. She'd only known the woman for the past five minutes, most of which had been spent discussing her coat, of all things; so Claire really had no idea about who Bennett actually was. Then again, so far Bennett had made no move to turn Claire in and now she was actually offering to help her. She had to make a choice; it was either accept Bennett's help, or leave without her coat.

"Would that be okay?" Claire asked tentatively and Bennett smiled back at her.

"It's fine. Should I bring it back here?" she asked. Claire looked around at the window lined room before turning back to Bennett.

"No," she replied, "It's not safe for me here."

"Not safe?" Bennett asked. "You're really not meant to be here are you?" she asked.

"No, I'm not," Claire replied.

"Is there are particular reason why?" Bennett asked and Claire found herself wishing that the other woman weren't so curious. She really didn't have time for this and she wasn't comfortable telling this woman she barely knew all about her; even if Bennett did seem to already know quite a lot about her.

"Not really," Claire replied. "I didn't do anything dreadful if that's what you're thinking," she tried to sound reassuring, not wanting to scare Bennett off seeing as she was Claire's only chance of getting her coat back. "I just left and I didn't really leave on the best of terms with… everyone." Bennett only nodded in reply, seeming to accept that Claire didn't really want to talk about it.

"So where should I bring the coat once I've got it?" she asked.

"There's an alcove," Claire began, then hesitated, unwilling to disclose the alcove where she and Boyd had been hiding seeing as Boyd was still hiding there and she didn't want Bennett to run into him by accident. Still, if she left soon after Bennett she would probably have enough time to warn Boyd before Bennett came to meet her in the alcove with the coat. "There's an alcove at the top of the stairs on the landing," she finished.

Bennett nodded before turning to leave; but turned back as she reached the sliding door.

"He's not okay," she said quietly.

"Who? Topher?" Claire asked, though she knew she didn't really need to ask. After all, who else would Bennett be talking about?

"He misses you," Bennett said.

"He told you that?" Claire asked skeptically.

"I don't know him very well, but I get the feeling that Topher's not really the type of person who would tell someone he barely knows about how he feels. He didn't need to tell me, it was written all over his face; and I'm not good at reading people so the fact that I can see it…" Bennett trailed off. There was a moment of silence as Claire fought against her instincts telling her to hurry up and get out of there and another part of her that wanted to stay and comfort Topher. "Are you going to stay?" Bennett asked.

"No," Claire replied, her mind made up after her moment of doubt. "He'll be okay without me," she added, though an image came to mind of Topher, lost without her and Claire felt something tighten in her chest.

Bennett gave Claire a last lingering look, as though, even though they barely knew each other, she could succeed where Topher had failed and convince Claire to stay. Claire wondered how long Topher and Bennett had known each other. After all, she hadn't been gone very long and it seemed strange that in that short period of time they would have formed a close enough relationship that Bennett really cared about Topher. Unless it was something more. Claire felt a surge of something that could only be jealously. A fiery monster clawing it's way up from her stomach, making her catch alight and irrationally long to shout at the woman in front of her. She quelled it after a moment, forcing herself to calm down; after all, she had no reason to be spiteful towards Bennett who was helping her for no apparent reason.

"I'll see you at the alcove then," Bennett said, leaving the office and sliding the door shut behind her. Claire stood in her office for a few minutes, watching Bennett's silhouette grow smaller through the glazed door panels. When she could no longer hear Bennett's shoes clicking on the wooden floor Claire slid the door open and took a deep breath, stealing herself for another dash across the main floor.

**Note:**

**Hi guys! I'm so sorry this update has taken ages; but hopefully the uber long chapter made up for it a bit! My friend (who is also my wonderful beta) is currently in the hospital so I've been spending a lot of time there and haven't really had much time to write. I've started taking my laptop with me now so hopefully the next chapter shouldn't take as long but if it takes a while that's why.**


	27. Chapter 27: Home

Chapter 27 – Home

Standing in the cramped alcove with an infuriated Boyd quite literally breathing down the back of her neck did not make for the most enjoyable twenty minutes of Claire's life. She hadn't been surprised to find that Boyd was unimpressed by the fact that she'd trusted Bennett not to dob them in and he'd made it very clear that he thought her trip to get her coat was a foolish idea. To add to the stress of it all, despite her best intentions, Claire was beginning to have doubts about her decision to leave the Dollhouse. Her trip down to her office and her conversation with Bennett had taken longer than she'd expected and the Dollhouse was beginning to rouse as outside, unseen by those living in the underground facility, the sun began to rise. Actives were meandering across the main floor and already two of them had been led past the alcove where Claire and Boyd were standing to have treatments.

To her surprise, Claire caught sight of Paul Ballard, November and Echo standing together on the down on the main floor. She turned to Boyd with confusion in her eyes, unsure why the man who Adelle had been trying to keep as far away from the Dollhouse as possible was currently talking confidently with Echo and November while standing in the midst of the very secret they'd been trying to hide. Boyd followed her gaze down to the FBI agent and the two actives and whispered a brief explanation of what had happened while she'd been unconscious after Alpha's attack and during her time staying at his house. Claire found it hard to believe that in that short space of time Paul Ballard had become their ally and Echo had become… she didn't really know what to call Echo any more. She wasn't an active, that was for sure and Claire supposed that with multiple imprints she must have formed a new composite personality, otherwise her brain wouldn't have been able to cope housing multiple personalities.

As Claire watched the group standing together down on the main floor she realized that she hadn't thought about what November was doing there. As far as Claire knew, November had been released from the Dollhouse a while ago and regained her life as Madeline Costley. In fact, Claire remembered performing November's final check up herself. So what was she doing back in the Dollhouse? As Claire watched Madeline moved closer to Paul until their shoulders were touching and, although their backs were towards Claire and she couldn't see either of their faces, she could tell that Paul was uncomfortable as he moved away from Madeline, putting a more respectable space between them.

As far as Claire knew Madeline had no romantic interest in Paul Ballard, seeing as, as far as she was concerned, she barely knew the man, having only met him once or twice. The only logical reason for Madeline's actions and Paul's discomfort was if Madeline was in fact imprinted as Mellie. Although the idea seemed strange at first, with what Boyd had told her of Topher and Adelle's trip to the DC Dollhouse and importance of Caroline's wedge, it made sense that November's most cooperative state would be as Mellie. Adelle would undoubtedly be looking for all the help she could get, and having another ally or even just an imprintable body at her disposal would contribute to their band of rebels. Looking down at the three figures below her Claire found herself pitying their love triangle. According to Boyd, Echo and Paul had become more than just close and Claire knew that didn't bode at all well for Mellie. Then again, Claire's situation with Topher wasn't entirely perfect either.

The fact that actives had been coming in and out of the imprint room over the past few minutes meant that Topher was most likely in the imprint room only a few meters away. Although they hadn't parted on the best of terms, Claire felt a strange longing to see him again. She told herself that she wasn't pining over him or anything pathetic like that; she just wanted to check that he was okay, and that was all. Still, she couldn't help the way her heart jumped every time someone made their way from his office towards the alcove, half hoping and half dreading that it would be Topher.

As nice as it was living in Boyd's more than comfortable house, there was something almost homey about the Dollhouse that, when Claire thought about it, was inherently wrong on so many levels. What kind of person walked into a place where lives and personalities were ripped away and prostitution and slavery were practically a daily norm and felt as though they had come home? Still, standing in the Dollhouse, even in the cramped, dark alcove, Claire found herself relaxing in a way she just hadn't been able to at Boyd's house; and the more she thought about it, the more she realized how much she was dreading leaving again. For a moment Claire wondered what Boyd would say if she decided to stay.

Claire's musings were interrupted as she suddenly noticed Bennett nearing the alcove. Both she and Boyd startled as neither of them had heard her approach with Claire being to busy contemplating the Dollhouse and Boyd unable to see past her due to the confined alcove.

"What took you so long?" Boyd hissed.

"Topher woke up so I couldn't leave straight away. I got the coat though. See, I am trustworthy," Bennett whispered with a slight smile as she handed over Claire's vaguely rumpled coat. Looking down at the coat in her arms Claire was forcibly reminded of when Alpha had attacked her and as she trailed her fingertips across the faded red bloodstains lingering under the upturned collar she had to force back painful memories of the attack. Forcing a smile she stepped forward slightly in order to get closer to Bennett so she could whisper her grateful reply and as she did she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye.

On her way out of Topher's office Bennett had left the door slightly ajar and it was open wide enough that Claire could see into the now brightly lit office. It wasn't the office that interested her though, it was Topher. He was sitting at his desk, his elbows resting on the table, head in his hands with a soldering iron clenched in one fist. As Claire watched he put the tool down on the desk to run a hand through his already bed-rumpled hair, making it stand up wildly. His movement allowed Claire to see his face properly for the first time in a few days and she was surprised by how unwell he looked. Although, judging by his impressive bed-head, he had been asleep, he looked as though he might drop from exhaustion at any moment and as far away as she was Claire could see the dark smudges bruising the skin beneath his eyes.

Before she even realized she was doing it Claire took a step out of the alcove and towards the office, inexplicably drawn towards Topher. She only noticed that she had left the alcove when Bennett placed a hand awkwardly on her arm, jolting her back to reality. Claire could feel the blush rising in her cheeks as she looked at Bennett and was met with her sympathetic almost pitying gaze. She forced herself to step reluctantly back into the alcove but stopped when Bennett's fingers tightened slightly around her arm.

"You don't think," Bennett whispered, leaning in until her lips almost brushed Claire's ear, ensuring her voice was soft enough that even Boyd wouldn't be able to hear, "that maybe you should stay?" Claire didn't reply, but looking up she saw Topher wearily resting his head on his crossed arms, as though he was trying to sleep with his head on the desk and she felt something inside her snap at the sight of him so broken.

Plucking up her courage Claire turned back to Boyd.

"I'm staying," she told him, no longer bothering to whisper. She was expecting him to argue with her and try to convince her to come back and stay with him, but to her surprise he just nodded.

"If you're sure," he replied. Looking back at Topher again Claire made up her mind. As much as she hated it, she had to accept that what she felt for the immoral programmer was definitely something other than hatred, and in order for her to figure out exactly what that feeling was, she needed to stay. There was no hope trying to understand the inner workings of her mind while living as far away as she could possibly get from the very man who had effectively created every thought she'd ever had.

"Thanks for letting me stay with you," she told Boyd, wishing she could repay him in some way for his kindness. After all, he had gained absolutely nothing by helping her and, in fact, all he'd managed to do was endanger his job and, knowing the Dollhouse's strict secrecy and security protocols, probably his life as well.

"I hope you find what ever it is you're looking for," he replied cryptically, before sliding past her and Bennett and walking away down the stairs to the main floor, no doubt off to falsify the security tapes of their visit. Claire turned back to Bennett and felt a wave of inexplicable relief as she shrugged her coat back on. Being back in the Dollhouse felt strangely right and Claire suddenly realized how wary and tense she'd felt living in the outside world.

"I'm glad you decided to stay," Bennett said as she turned to walk back to Topher's office, "even if it wasn't for him." Now that the adrenaline rush from her jaunt down to her office had worn off Claire felt an overwhelming exhaustion wash over her, sinking down to her bones. Although Topher was sitting only a few metres away from her she just didn't have the strength to go through what would inevitably be a painful, awkward and tiring reunion. Bennett gave Claire a slight smile as she walked into Topher's office, closing the door behind her and deciding that their reunion could wait a while, Claire made her way down to her office.

Arriving in her office the first thing Claire did was triumphantly turn the lights on, flooding the room with its typical glow that warmed the dark office back to life. Sinking into her chair behind her desk Claire sighed in relief as she settled into the familiar room once again. As she looked around she realized that, when she'd been there previously, she hadn't noticed that the bed she'd slept on while recovering from Alpha's attack had been removed. During the time she'd been away the bed had been returned to wherever it had come from and all her furniture had been moved back into place. She briefly considered taking a nap in her room but realized that she didn't have her suitcase with all her belongings in it. When she and Boyd had come to the Dollhouse she hadn't been planning on staying so all of her clothes and other belongings were still in her suitcase back at his apartment. Though she was exhausted, Claire didn't really fancy sleeping in the only pair of clothes she had, because she didn't know when Boyd would be able to bring her suitcase in for her.

To her chagrin, Claire turned on her computer only to overwhelmed by new emails and when she slid open her desk draw, looking for a pen and paper to write a to do list, she found a stack of active files requiring reports and updates. Life in the Dollhouse had continued at full pace even without her. The multitude of emails and files made Claire wonder whether Adelle had been going to replace her at all. She hadn't been away for long, so maybe she just hadn't got around to finding a replacement yet; but the drawer full of files made Claire wonder whether Adelle had suspected that she'd be back after all. Unable to find a pen in the drawer while it was so full of files, Claire reached into her coat pocket for the spare one she usually kept there. There wasn't a pen in either of her pockets which wasn't surprising seeing as the coat had been washed in order to remove the blood stains so the pockets had probably been emptied. As she withdrew her hand Claire's fingers brushed up against a small rectangle of paper which she pulled from the pocket.

The paper was in fact a torn photograph; one that Claire was painfully familiar with. Though it had been ripped down the middle, Claire knew that the original photo had been of herself and her mother, taken in the moment of joy when she'd received her first medical certificate. Those had been happier times, when her father had still been alive and her parents had still been happily married. Claire could vividly remember the exact moment the picture was taken. She'd received her certificate at a ceremony but on the day her mother had forgotten the camera, so there were no photos of the actual moment itself; but this photo had been taken when they'd got home. Her parents had been overjoyed and her little sister had been embarrassing her by calling everyone they knew with the good news. In the photograph Claire's cheeks were faintly flushed, tinged with a mix of excitement and embarrassment and, although all that could be seen of her mother in the torn photograph was her left arm wrapped around Claire's shoulder, Claire remembered that she had been beaming at the camera. Her sister wasn't in the photo as she'd been on the phone to their aunt who had moved to Ireland earlier that year and neither was her father who had been taking the photo.

The most noticeable thing about the photo was that Claire's smiling face wasn't marred by scars. This drew Claire from her thoughts of her family and she remembered why she'd left the photograph behind in the first place. Once she'd found out that she'd been an active, Claire had begun to realize that her entire life had been a lie, and, naturally she'd extended that realization to include the fact that her family was probably fictional. When she'd considered it, Claire had realized that her family was almost a perfect replica of those she'd seen in other active's engagement files. All of her relatives were either distanced or dead which meant she had almost no contact with them. Her father had died from cancer only a few years after the photograph she held in her hands had been taken; and her sister's job as an airhostess meant that she was always busy and didn't really have time to phone Claire. Like the other actives with long term imprints, Claire had received false communication from her sister in the form of monthly letters detailing her visits to exotic countries and her plans for her upcoming wedding with the man of her dreams; and Claire phoned her mother in England once a week, lying through her teeth about how well her job at the local hospital was going and how she'd met a great guy. At the time Claire had felt bad about lying to her mother about her life, but now that she knew that her mother's voice was most likely that of a Rossum employee, all her guilt was replaced by anger.

Distraught by the knowledge that her family was a fake, Claire had left the photograph behind when she'd left the Dollhouse to start a new life. It would have been impossible to leave this life behind when she was carrying around the photograph as proof that she herself wasn't real. Even now, looking at it with the certain knowledge that the people she thought to be her family didn't exist, Claire was almost overwhelmed by a wave of love for her mother, grief over the loss of her father, and pride over her sister's engagement. The knowledge that it was all fake didn't make her emotions feel any less real. Running her thumb over the rough, torn edge of the photograph Claire wondered what had happened to it. When she'd left it in her room the photograph had been whole and she wondered when it had been ripped and how it had ended up in the pocket of her coat. She figured that, seeing as the photograph had been in her pocket but not her spare pen, it must have been put there after the coat was washed. The only person that she knew had touched the coat after it had been washed was Topher and she felt a thrill run up her spine at the thought that he'd been in her room. She tried to convince herself that, no, she didn't feel a thrill, not at all, she felt creeped out by the fact that he'd been looking around her room. Despite her attempts to convince herself, Claire couldn't help but run her fingers over the photograph, thinking that Topher had been the last person to touch it.


	28. Chapter 28: Progress

Chapter 28 – Progress

Topher woke up after only a few hours of nightmare-plagued sleep, feeling even more exhausted that he'd felt the day before. Quickly pulling on some clothes he staggered out into his office, only to find Bennett already sitting at his desk working on Caroline's wedge. For a moment she didn't even notice him, she was so engrossed in her work, then she turned to look at him for a second before beckoning him over to the table where she was working. Topher glanced down at his watch and sighed as he realized that he'd only slept for three hours. Hopefully his fantastic night of sleep down in Claire's office the other night along with gratuitous amounts of coffee would be enough to tide him over until he managed to sleep again.

Topher sighed again as he walked over to Bennett, trying to work up the strength to put on a façade and act normal. As exhausted as he was he knew it wouldn't be fair to impose his bad mood and worries on Bennett.

"You started without me," Topher chided, striving for humor but anyone would tell by the tone of his voice that his heart clearly wasn't really in it. He wasn't surprised when Bennett gave him a cursory glance that told him that his attempt at humor had fallen flat. Topher gave her an half smile that didn't reach his eyes before sitting down beside her, picking up a tool and turning to the wedge.

"You've done a lot since I last saw it," he exclaimed looking down at the almost complete wedge and, to his surprise, finding himself becoming genuinely interested. Looking at Caroline's wedge when it had been in pieces had only served as a reminder of how much work he still had to do and how far it was from repair. Fixing the wedge had seemed impossible at the time especially with everything that had been going on with Claire and Alpha. Now, looking down at the almost complete wedge, Topher felt as though there was hope of repairing it after all.

"Well, I've had a lot of time to work on it since I last saw you," Bennett replied, not even looking up from her work as she determinedly soldered strands of metal together.

"About that," Topher murmured guiltily, running his hands through his hair, "I had to… look after a… friend. She was… well, she was attacked and -"

"I know," Bennett interrupted, saving him from his stuttering reply. "Ms DeWitt told me about what happened with your rogue active. Well, your other rogue active," she added, referring to her recent encounter with Echo at the DC Dollhouse. Bennett turned back to the wedge and continued to work in silence and assuming their conversation was over, Topher picked up a soldering iron and turned to help her.

"The woman, Claire, she was an active right?" Bennett asked suddenly, causing Topher to twitch and burn his finger as he dropped the soldering iron at the sound of Claire's name.

"Yeah," Topher replied, running his hands over his face with a sigh before picking up the soldering iron and turning to back the wedge with a stubborn I-don't-want-to-talk-about-this expression on his face that he hoped would ward Bennett off. Thankfully Bennett respected the fact that he didn't want to talk about it and they spent the next few minutes working in slightly uncomfortable silence.

"I'm just going to take a break if that's alright," Bennett said as she stood up from the desk and began to walk out of the office. Topher only nodded in reply and turned back to working on the wedge, to absorbed in his own thoughts to notice Bennett subtly pick up Claire's coat as she left the room.

Left alone, Topher stopped working and succumbed to his thoughts. For the thousandth time he wondered what Claire was doing and if she was okay. Alpha's return had been traumatic enough for him and he hadn't been the one on the sharp end of the scalpel. Then again, he had been there both times after Claire had been attacked, even if she couldn't remember the first time, and the irony of that coincidence didn't escape him. Now that she knew she'd been an active, and had most likely reconsidered her memories of Alpha's first attack, Topher wondered whether she remembered anything of that first unsuspected attack. Did she remember that he had been there and held her in his arms? Did she remember that while everyone else had been focused on Alpha he'd only had eyes for her?

He hoped she didn't remember it. Going through that once had caused her enough pain to last a lifetime and that memory was one she would probably be glad to have lost. Topher only wished he could scrub it from his own mind so he would be free from his recurring nightmare of her sickly, pale face and his own hands slick with her blood. Nightmares from which he woke in a panic and had to run to the bathroom and fight the urge to throw up before scrubbing the phantom blood from beneath his fingernails. He'd altered her memory of the event of course, so that instead of an oblivious doll she was an innocent bystander. In her fabricated memory she'd been attacked on the main floor by Alpha as he'd made his escape; just another casualty. In her memory Topher hadn't even been there.

Topher shook himself out of his reverie as Bennett stepped into the office, quickly turning back to the wedge and acting as though he'd been working on it all along. Bennett sat down in her chair beside him and picked up a tool; but instead of resuming work on the wedge she put the tool down again and turned to fix Topher with a steely gaze.

"Something wrong?" he asked, bemused by her sudden hostility.

"As a matter of fact, yes," she replied. "Before I do anymore work on this wedge there's one thing I need to know." Topher sighed, immediately knowing what her question was going to be. He'd known that it would only be a matter of time before she asked this question. "I need to know who's on this wedge," she demanded. Topher looked down, unwilling to meet her eyes. "Who are you trying to resurrect?" she asked, more forcefully this time.

"Um.. this person," he stuttered, trying to think of a reply that wouldn't involve revealing that it was Caroline's wedge. "Does it matter?" he asked, hoping that she would just leave it alone and go back to work, although he knew that was highly unlikely.

"It might," Bennett replied, glaring at him intensely.

Topher hadn't had time to think up an answer to this inevitable question, what with everything that had happened over the past few days. To be truthful he had almost forgotten that it was only a matter of time before Bennett would want to know who was on the wedge; and he knew that telling her that it was Caroline would be a huge mistake. He knew that he really should have spent his time thinking up an answer instead of moping over Claire leaving, but it was too late now.

"It's not like it's Stalin or somebody," he replied, attempting to placate her with humor while trying to think of a plausible answer.

"I didn't suppose that it would be a historical figure," Bennett said with a wry smile. "Who is it?" she asked again. Topher swallowed nervously, there was no way this was going to end well.

While Topher's brain stuttered trying to think up an answer, Bennett turned to look out the window and Topher watched as she caught sight of Echo standing down on the main floor talking to Paul and November. Echo turned to look straight at them, and Topher took a deep breath, carefully watching Bennett who was staring at Echo. Then Bennett slowly turned to look at Topher, her expression hard and unreadable. Before he even had a chance to open his mouth and attempt to explain the situation Bennett's right fist was heading straight for his face. The force of the impact forced his head back, jarring his neck painfully as her fist connected with his face.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, his hands flying up to the corner of his mouth where his lip was split and bleeding.

"You knew," Bennett said, her voice dangerously calm. "You knew who was on this wedge and you didn't tell me because you knew I wouldn't fix it if I knew it was her."

"I'm sorry," Topher replied, his voice slightly distorted due to his steadily bleeding lip. "I had to."

"You should have told me the truth," Bennett replied with a stony glare before turning away from him and standing up with a jolt that jarred the table, causing her soldering iron to fall to the floor. "I can't work on this right now. I need some time to think," she muttered, "And you should get your face looked at."

Just then Ivy arrived, walking in from the balcony and setting her bag down by the door and pulling out a carton of juice boxes to put in the fridge.

"I bought the juice boxes but they didn't have any apple so-" She stopped as she looked up and caught sight of Topher's bloodied face and Bennett standing beside him with her fist still clenched. "What did I miss?" she asked confusedly.

"She punched me in the face!" Topher exclaimed, gesturing towards Bennett.

"Well I had a good reason to!" Bennett shouted back. "You were lying to me this entire-"

"I wasn't lying to you!" Topher interrupted and Bennett responded with a questioning glare. "I just omitted some facts," he murmured.

"Lying by omission is still lying!" Bennett retorted.

"Hey!" Ivy interrupted. "Stop it, both of you! I don't care who lied or who said what first. Bennett, you can stay with me while Topher gets his lip seen to," she instructed, leaving Topher scowling behind her as she led Bennett into the imprint room, shutting the doors behind her.

"You're dripping on your shirt by the way," Bennett called out triumphantly from the other room as Topher stalked out of the office, one hand held to his throbbing lip. He looked down and saw that he had indeed stained a small patch of the front of his shirt blood red and his frown only deepened; that would never come out.

**Note: My amazing beta is finally back home and 100%. I hope my uncorrected spelling and grammar errors in her absence weren't too terrible! Really though, feel free to point them out to me if you find any because some days I can't even spell my own name.**


	29. Chapter 29: Explanation

Chapter 29 - Explanation

As Topher left his office, one hand held gingerly to his bleeding lip, he wondered if there was any way that he could have kept Caroline's wedge a secret from Bennett. He'd known that she would eventually ask who was on the wedge and that when she asked he wouldn't be able to lie. Though surely punching him was an overreaction. Then again, if he'd been taken hostage and tricked into half resurrecting his worst enemy before realizing who they were he would probably be inclined to punch someone too.

"Hello?" Topher called as he walked into Claire's brightly lit office. He mentally reminded himself to stop thinking of it as her office; after all, she might never come back and eventually DeWitt would have to replace her. In the end the actives' safety and wellbeing was more important than holding a position open for someone who would most likely never return to the Dollhouse. Reaching the centre of the office Topher stopped next to the examination bed, wondering if DeWitt had even appointed a temporary doctor for while Claire was gone. The lights were on he assumed that someone had been in here, though luckily he didn't need to wait for them to come back as having had many minor cuts and grazes while working on his tech Topher knew where Claire kept the antiseptic and cotton buds.

Topher walked across to one of the many wooden shelves and began to sift through the assortment of bottles and containers looking for the antiseptic. As he searched he heard footsteps coming towards him and the deep murmur of Boyd's voice followed by one of his rare laughs. Finally finding the antiseptic he turned to greet Boyd, plastic bottle held triumphantly in hand.

"Hey, man fr-" he stopped suddenly at the sight of the figure standing in the doorway next to Boyd and there was a clatter as the bottle fell from his slack grasp to the wooden floor.

"Topher?" Claire asked, eyes widening in shock.

"Claire? I… You… You're back." Topher stuttered. "Where were you?" he continued as Claire left Boyd in the doorway and walked over to him. "I mean, not that I'm not glad that you're back… Actually the opposite… I mean-"

"Topher," Claire interrupted his stammering softly, before bending to pick up the bottle of antiseptic from where it had rolled to next to examination bed. "You're bleeding."

"Oh," Topher said and he reached up to try and wipe away some of the blood from his lip but only succeeded in smearing it across the rest of his mouth. He'd entirely forgotten about his split lip, but now that Claire had reminded him it had begun to throb in earnest.

"Why don't you let me take care of that?" Claire asked with a soft smile before patting the examination bed, "Hop up."

Still staring at Claire, unwilling to take his eyes of her in fear she might disappear again, Topher made his way over to the examination table and jumped up to sit on the edge. Sitting down helped Topher clear his head and in that moment he realized that Claire was wearing her coat. He wondered in a panic where she'd got the coat seeing as he'd taken it from her office earlier. He'd had it up in is office and surely Claire hadn't gone up there; he'd have noticed. When had she got back anyway? She also hadn't answered his question about where she'd been; but Topher didn't get a chance to ask Claire any of his multitude of questions as, while he'd been thinking about her coat, Claire had picked up a cotton bud from the tray next to the examination bed, dipped it in the antiseptic and was now holding it up to his mouth.

"Tip your head back," she commanded and he was forced to keep his mouth still as she dabbed his cut with antiseptic, causing it to sting painfully.

"I was staying with Boyd," Claire said, answering Topher's first question as she intently swabbed Topher's lip. Topher's gaze darted over to Boyd and he glared at him angrily.

"Wait… wh-what?" he stammered, raising one arm to push Claire's gently hand away. "You told me you didn't know where she was!" he almost shouted at Boyd, "You were lying to me that whole time!" Topher's anger faded quickly as everything began to make sense. "That's why you weren't here when I called you to say she was missing… You were with her! How could you… when I asked you…" Topher trailed off, eyeing Boyd disappointedly.

"It's not his fault, I made him promise not to tell anyone," Claire said, trying to come to Boyd's defense.

Topher scowled disbelievingly and Claire took the opportunity to bring the cotton bud back up to his lip while his mouth was closed, bracing her other hand on the side of Topher's jaw. Topher rolled his eyes and sighed heavily, unimpressed by the fact that he was unable to speak. An uncomfortable silence filled the room and Topher was suddenly hyper aware of the fact that Claire was standing extremely close to him. She was standing between his legs, close enough that the cuffs of her coat brushed against his chest as when she moved her hands. He could feel the heat radiating off her and his lips tingled under her intense gaze making him fight the urge to moisten them with his tongue. Claire seemed to notice how close they were and her eyes flickered up the meet his for a second before refocusing on his lips. Topher's eyes slid closed as she continued to dab at his lip with her right hand while her left moved down to rest on his thigh. He leant into the warmth of her touch which brought their faces close enough that he could feel Claire's breath warm against his cheek.

"Mr. Langton I need to speak with you immediately," DeWitt's commanded, her voice abruptly shattering the silence, causing Topher to jump slightly as his eyes shot open and Claire to quickly turn her head towards the doorway. Topher had been so caught up in the moment that he'd totally forgotten that Boyd was standing in the doorway. Boyd gave the two of them a brief smile before stepping outside to join DeWitt. "Topher," DeWitt continued, "that troublesome one armed creature, where is she?"

Claire moved her hand away so Topher could reply, also surreptitiously removing her other hand from his thigh to rest by her side.

"I left her with Ivy in the imprint room, couldn't leave her in the lab unattended," Topher replied, clearing his throat to dispel his suddenly hoarse voice.

"When Doctor Saunders is finished with you come and see me please," DeWitt instructed before walking away with Boyd following behind her. The fact that she hadn't even looked twice at Claire told Topher that DeWitt had already known that she was back and he began to wonder if he was the only one who hadn't known about her return.

Topher tried very hard not to think about the fact that he and Claire were now alone in her office as she turned to trade the now bloodied cotton bud for a clean one.

"So you stayed with Boyd, huh?" Topher asked as she took a new cotton bud out of the packet on the tray.

"He offered for me to stay with him," Claire replied raising the new cotton bud towards his lip, "And I had no where else to go."

"You didn't _have_ to go anywhere!" Topher exclaimed, the sudden movement of his mouth causing the cotton bud to slide across his cheek, leaving behind a wet trail.

"I had to get away," Claire replied simply, abandoning the cotton bud on the tray, "I couldn't stay here after..."

"You came back though," Topher said, "Why did you come back?" Claire stepped away and for the first time during the conversation her gaze left Topher's so he could tell that she was lying as she replied.

"Boyd convinced me that I would be better off here."

"That's a lie and we both know it," he said, reaching out to grasp her wrists and pull her back in closer.

"Topher," she murmured, halfheartedly trying move away to put a bit more space between them.

"You couldn't stay away because the Dollhouse is your home," Topher said, leaning in even closer. "You belong here," he whispered, their faces now close enough that he could see her individual eyelashes. "You belong here, with me," he finished and to his satisfaction he saw here gaze slip to his lips as her tongue slid out to moisten her own.

Topher couldn't hold back any longer and with one swift movement he closed the gap between them and crushed his lips against hers. For a second he worried that she'd push him away but she responded, her soft lips moving beneath his as she grasped desperately at his arms. The kiss wasn't calm but it was still tender even in its urgency as Topher licked at the seam of Claire's lips, begging for entrance. She opened her mouth with a soft moan and the next moment their tongues were dancing together. Topher felt as though he was drowning as Claire's hands grabbed at the front of his shirt, fingers digging into his skin through the cotton as she tried to pull him impossibly closer. She was standing so close now that their bodies were joined from their hips up and Topher rested his hands on Claire's waist, unable to keep his fingers from curling tightly around her. He could feel the heat of her skin through the fabric of her dress. The kiss was by no means perfect though, as Topher's lip stung with every touch and the bitter tang of antiseptic laced both of their tongues.

Finally they broke apart, Topher's hands remaining on Claire's waist and hers on his chest as they both gasped for breath. Topher could feel his heart pounding in his chest, trying to escape with every frantic beat and as an unfamiliar warm feeling of contentment washed over him he couldn't help but tenderly pull Claire back in closer so he could wrap his arms around her.

"Now I'll have to redo your lip," Claire sighed jokingly as she tucked her head into the curve of his neck, her breath hot against his skin and Topher couldn't help but think that she would have been more convincing had she not sounded so breathless or looked so utterly wrecked with her flushed cheeks, kiss bitten lips and messy hair.

"That's okay, I've got time," Topher replied with a smirk.

**Note: A huge thank you to the wonderful Bec whose fantastic message from a few weeks ago inspired most of this chapter. I praise her amazing skills of observation and dedicate this chapter to her. I love you sweetie! To everyone who has reviewed or even just read the chapters: I love you all, you never cease to amaze me with your dedication even though I take ages to update and should super glued to my laptop every week until I post a new chapter.**


	30. Chapter 30: Closer

Chapter 30 – Closer

Sitting in his office with Bennett, Topher could barely even concentrate on the nearly repaired wedge in front of him. While his hands worked diligently his mind drifted, reliving the moment when he and Claire had kissed. After receiving a few strange glances from Bennett sitting beside him Topher realized that he had been sitting there with a silly grin plastered all over his face and he was surprised to find that he didn't really care. He felt happier than he could remember feeling in weeks and even DeWitt's slave driver attitude about Caroline's wedge couldn't dampen his good mood. He was just thankful that he wasn't working on his own, seeing as his lack of concentration had led to him a number of near mistakes that would have made repairing the wedge a lot harder had Bennett not stopped him just in time.

In fact, he was lucky that Bennett was helping him at all after the way their last conversation had gone. Being otherwise occupied down in Claire's office, Topher hadn't been there when DeWitt had gone to speak to Bennett. Although she was now working with him, Bennett was still furious and all Topher had managed to glean from her was that DeWitt had promised her something in return for her help with the wedge. Mostly she refused to talk to him, and when she did it was only about their work on the wedge.

They were closed to finishing the wedge already and as soon as they were finished and had imprinted Echo with Caroline they would go ahead with their plan to take down Rossum. Truthfully Topher was surprised that DeWitt's seemingly crazy plan had played out this far. He hadn't expected that they'd be able to repair the wedge and he was still skeptical of DeWitt's seemingly unspecific plans for exactly how they were going to 'take down Rossum'. Though he could only guess that DeWitt's final plan depended on Caroline's knowledge, especially her knowledge of the head of Rossum, and hopefully once they had her on board their crusade would become much easier.

From his seat at the desk Topher could hear the muffled voices of Ivy and Mike from the imprint room. DeWitt had instructed them to imprint all the actives with their original personalities and release them. Topher understood that she didn't want to have to worry about a house full of helpless actives while they were busy at the Rossum building in Tucson. Leaving actives behind would only put them in danger seeing as once Rossum found out that the little band of rebels from the LA Dollhouse was onto them, they would undoubtedly send trained people after them who probably wouldn't show the dolls any mercy.

Seeing as he didn't really understand her motives for helping him, Topher didn't trust Bennett and he hadn't wanted to leave her alone in his office with his computers and important wedges; so he'd given Ivy the massive task of releasing all the dolls. He'd also thought that he'd be of better use working on the wedge but he hadn't taken into account how distracting his thoughts of Claire and her mouth would be and now he was wondering if he was, in fact, more of a hindrance.

Topher stood up as he heard the elevator in the imprint room slide shut, cutting off Mike's voice as he was taken down to the garage to be driven home.

"I'm just going to check up on Ivy," he told Bennett as he made his way to the imprint room, purposely leaving the door to the office open so that he would still be able to monitor her from the other room.

"How many more do we have left?" he asked Ivy who was tapping away on an electronic pad with one hand and wearily pushing her hair back from her face with the other.

"That's it," Ivy replied as she shelved Mike's original wedge, "Other than the ones that are staying, of course." As well as Echo November and Claire had both decided to stay to help them with their attack on Rossum. Topher hadn't wanted Claire to stay and he'd begged her to go and stay somewhere she'd be safe, anywhere, even at Boyd's house until the fight was over; but Claire had always been strong willed and she'd argued that if Echo and November were allowed to stay then she was too.

Topher heard voices from the office and turned back to the other room to see Echo standing beside Caroline as they worked. Judging by the fact that Bennett hadn't punched Echo in the face as, judging by their history Toper had assumed she would, they were getting on quite well which made him wonder exactly what DeWitt had said to Bennett to convince her to finish her work on the wedge. As Topher watched Echo left and Bennett gave her a slight wave. They were definitely getting along better than he'd expected.

"Topher, could you get me some more micro-screws?" Bennett asked without even looking up from her work. Topher smiled slightly and headed off to the storage room.

By the time Claire woke up she was already half way across the main floor which was strange to say the least, seeing as she was sure she'd fallen asleep at her desk and she wasn't a sleep walker. What was even stranger was the cold, heavy weight of the gun in her right hand, her index finger resting snugly against the trigger. A bolt of panic jolted through her at the sight of the gun, having an effect similar to being doused in a bucket of cold water. Claire was instantly wide awake. She tried to drop the gun but her hand didn't respond, like it didn't belong to her and her feet continued to carry her forwards. She could still see, hear and feel but she couldn't control her body. It was as though she was living inside her own head, sitting in the passenger seat inside her mind just unable to reach out the outside world.

Claire didn't understand. She didn't own a gun. She didn't even know where to buy a gun. The only time she'd spent outside of the Dollhouse in the past few years had been her recent time at Boyd's house and she definitely didn't remember picking up a gun there. For a moment Claire wondered if she was dreaming, but it certainly wasn't a dream she'd ever had before. As she walked she could hear her shoes as they clacked against the wooden floor and feel her curls brushing the sides of her face as they swayed with each of her steps. Claire decided that it all felt much too real to be a dream and she began to fight back, stretching and pushing against the invisible force that restrained her.

Despite Claire's struggles her feet continued to follow the familiar path up to the balcony level. She tried to scream but even her voice wouldn't obey her as she mentally lashed out at the internal cage restricting her consciousness. Claire had felt like this before. In fact, she'd felt like this many times before: when she'd had her recurring nightmare about Alpha's first attack. She felt the same way now as she had in her nightmare when she'd been imprisoned inside her own memory.

When she reached the top of the stairs Claire's feet carried her towards Topher's office. As every step took her closer to the closed door leading to the office, Claire's fear over the purpose of the gun grew as possible scenarios flooded her mind. Was whoever or whatever that was controlling her going to shoot someone? Was it going to make her shoot and destroy the chair or the tech in the imprint room?

Imprisoned within her own mind Claire could only watch as her hand raised to push open the door leading into the office, the metal of the gun clicking slightly against the opaque plastic before her hand moved behind her back, obviously intending to ensure the gun would be out of sight of anyone who was in the office. Claire's legs dragged her through the doorway, resolutely challenging to her insistence that they turn back. _Stop_. She told her runaway feet as determinedly as she could, but the force controlling her was too strong and she could feel her instruction being redirected long before it reached her wayward feet.

Inside the office Bennett was sitting at Topher's desk working so intently on Caroline's wedge that she didn't even hear Claire entering the office. Claire heard herself clear her throat and Bennett turned to face her, dark curls bouncing with the sudden movement. Instead of fear Claire felt the beginning of a swell of relief. Surely Bennett would be able to tell that she wasn't herself.

"Claire!" Bennett greeted her warmly. "I didn't think you'd be back up here so soon. Do you want me to go and get Topher? Do you want me to leave so you two can talk?" she asked earnestly.

"No that's okay, it was actually you I wanted to talk to," Claire heard herself reply as her legs led her over to the railing at the edge of the platform. Her voice was so emotionless, surely Bennett must have noticed.

"Is something wrong?" Bennett asked, concern marring her previously welcoming expression.

"Is that Caroline's wedge?" Claire heard herself ask brusquely. Her brain was screaming at her to run away, but her legs were as heavy as lead, holding her in place.

"Um… yes," Bennett replied, seeming thrown slightly by the sudden change of topic. "I thought you knew I was working on it," she said, sounding confused.

"Is it nearly finished?" Claire's voice asked.

"Almost, it needs a bit more work though," Bennett responded, an edge of suspicion creeping into her voice now. "Are you sure you're feeling okay? Don't worry about talking to Topher I'm sure it will all be fine. Do you want to sit down or something? Topher should be back be back any -"

"I couldn't find any of the two millimeter screws so the threes will have to do," Topher's voice interrupted, coming from the imprint room, and a few seconds later Bennett turned her head to great him as he walked into the office holding a box of screws in his hand. He smiled at the sight of Claire and Bennett turned back around to look at her, an encouraging smile on her face. Topher opened his mouth to speak, but before he could Claire felt her arm whip up from behind her back to point the barrel of the gun straight at Bennett's head. _No!_ She told whatever was controlling her, but she didn't even have time to try and force her arm to move the gun away before she felt her finger wrap around the trigger, the cold metal biting into the warm flesh of her hand. Then her grip tightened and the echoing sound of a single shot filled the room.

Claire could only watch as Bennett's head ricocheted grotesquely backwards, her face still frozen in an expression of confusion, fear never even having time to even cross her features. Blood sprayed from the wound in the dead centre of her forehead, painting Topher's face and the computer screens behind her in dark crimson streaks. Then Bennett's head fell to rest against the back of the chair, her eyes dull, the pale film of death already occluding her previously bright hazel eyes. Inside her mind Claire couldn't even scream as Topher stood frozen, staring at her from across the room, not even moving to wipe the blood from his face.

Then Claire felt the muscles in her hand shift slightly, angling the gun so that it was now pointed at Topher. _No. _Claire pleaded. _Please, no._ The force controlling her didn't seemed to be at all interested in listening to her and she felt her finger once again begin to tighten around the trigger. _Please, I'll do anything! _She begged, but it seemed she would be shown no mercy as she felt the trigger slide smoothly beneath her finger. Claire felt a wave of desperation, anger, fear and overpowering love for the man before her crash over her. As the trigger clicked into position a strange tingling sensation spread through her and she felt the power controlling her seemingly dissolve, just in time for her to take control of her hand.

There was the crack of a gun shot and Claire stood frozen once more, now fully in control of her body as she looked up a Topher's blanched, pale face. She dropped the gun onto the carpet with a dulled thump and felt her knees threaten to give out under her as she realized that she hadn't been fast enough. She had shot Topher. Then, just as she was about to crumple to the floor, Topher took a step towards her. She blinked once. Twice. There was no wound and no blood. Other than Bennett's blood coating Topher's face, Claire could see no evidence of a gun shot wound. She'd managed to miss him after all.

Claire felt relief flood through her at the sight of Topher still alive. Then her eyes alighted on Bennett's slumped, dead body and her relief was crushed by grief, shock and shame. Even in death Bennett was still unbearably beautiful and, for a moment Claire could just pretend that Bennett was sleeping, passed out from exhaustion while working on the wedge. But then the details reasserted themselves, the lack of life sparkling in her eyes, the rigidness of her still chest as it waited for the next breath that would never come. Topher made a strangled sound and Claire looked up to find him staring forlornly at Bennett's lifeless body. Shaken out of her reverie, Claire realized that she'd unconsciously stepped towards Bennett, one hand reaching out towards her and she snatched her hand back, holding it tightly with her other hand as if, unrestrained, it would snatch up the gun and begin shooting again.

Claire felt a sticky wetness seeping into her shoes and she looked down to find her self standing in a tacky puddle of blood marring the previously cream carpet. Head wounds bleed a lot, her brain supplied, uselessly. Finally everything that had just happened sunk in. She had shot Bennett. She had killed Bennett. Looking up once more Bennett's lifeless gaze seemed to bore impossibly into her very soul, accusing her.

Claire turned and fled.


	31. Chapter 31: Human

Chapter 31 - Human

There was so much blood. Topher reached out and laid his hand on the still warm flesh of Bennett's arm, his fingers sliding against her tacky skin. He felt as though he was in a bubble. Everything sounded muffled and far away and his sight seemed to have zoomed until only Bennett's body filled his vision. He was only vaguely aware of Adelle barging into the office, followed by Paul and Boyd; and he made no effort to explain as they all stopped short inside the doorway, frozen by the sight before them.

"Topher," someone called faintly, their voice a near-silent whisper beneath the waves of blood rushing in his ears. Was that his heartbeat he could hear, or was it the last echo of Bennett's? "Topher," the voice called again, insistently. Topher tore his gaze away from Bennett's strangely peaceful face to meet Adelle's concerned gaze. "Topher, come here," she instructed gently from the doorway, holding out her hand to him.

Topher walked over to Adelle, his shoes sinking into the carpet now spongy with blood, and allowed her to lead him into the corner of the room. He sank down wearily against the wall. Adelle crouched in front of him, now holding onto both of his hands as she tried to comfort him. Topher looked down at his hands in hers and wondered detachedly why his were shaking like leaves in the wind, streaked red with the first tinge of autumn.  
>"Let's go clean you up, get you away from here," Adelle suggested calmly. How could she be so calm? Did she not see the blood? Could she not see that Bennett was dead?<br>"Bennett," Topher croaked, his voice seeming barely audible as it was swallowed up by the rushing of blood that pervaded his every sense.  
>"I know, I know… Let's get you out of here, shall we?" Adelle cajoled as Topher watched Boyd and Paul lay Bennett's body gently on the couch. Without her blood spattered backdrop she could be sleeping. Only the wound marring the centre of her forehead suggested otherwise.<p>

The journey down the stairs from Topher's office was strangely surreal, with Adelle holding his hand and the occasional glimpse of his own bloody face reflected in the windows of the offices that they passed. The blood looked almost fake, like he was some extra still made up from working a horror film. Topher felt hands on his shoulders, pressing down lightly and he sat down obligingly, coming to his senses enough to recognize the room he had been led to. Claire's office.

"Why here?" Topher asked.  
>"This is where all the medical supplies are," Adelle replied, almost apologetically.<br>"But you didn't bring Bennett. Or are we going to take the supplies up to her?" Surely it wouldn't take much to patch up that little hole in her forehead. Soon she would be as good as new. They'd fix her up and she'd reboot, the light flooding back into her eyes, her lips twitching up into a smile. He was Topher Brink, he could fix anything.

Adelle turned away, and for a moment Topher wondered if he'd said something wrong. Then she seemed to steel herself and turned back to face him.  
>"Don't worry about Bennett for now. We need to worry about you first," she said, gesturing to Topher's hands, bunched at his sides. Topher uncurled his fingers to reveal his palms, each marked with four crimson crescents where he'd unconsciously dug his nails in. He ran his thumb curiously over the wounds in his left palm. They didn't hurt. Why was Adelle bothering with his little cuts when Bennett could be dying up in his office? Dying…<br>"I forgot," he whispered.  
>"What did you forget?"<br>"I forgot she was dead." Adelle grimaced at him, a failed attempt at a comforting smile.

The antiseptic covered cloth stung as Adelle disinfected Topher's palm; but the tears that ached behind his eyes had nothing to do with the pain. Bennett was dead and there was nothing he could do. How had it all gone so horribly wrong so quickly? Had it only been yesterday that he had kissed Claire in this very room? During the day while he'd been working on the wedge with Bennett, every time he'd closed his eyes he had seen Claire's face in his mind. Claire, with her cheeks flushed and her reddened lips quirking up in a smile as she glowed in the aftermath of their kiss. Now, when he closed his eyes, he saw Claire with her cold, dead eyes staring unwaveringly at him as she raised the gun, her finger on the trigger.

"DeWitt," Boyd's voice called, causing Adelle's hand to slip as she almost dropped the blood soaked cloth. Topher hadn't realised that he'd been sitting there with his eyes closed, lost in his memories. Now he opened them to see Boyd standing in the office doorway.  
>"Yes. Do come in, Mr Langton," Adelle replied, the impatience in her voice revealing her displeasure over the intrusion.<br>"Can I speak to you outside?" Boyd asked, his gaze flitting pointedly over to Topher before meeting Adelle's eyes.  
>"I'll be fine," Topher insisted. Though his confident facade was somewhat betrayed by the way his voice came out hoarse and cracked, as though he'd been screaming. Had he been screaming? He couldn't remember.<p>

Casting a worried glance over her shoulder, Adelle left the office with Boyd, sliding the opaque door closed behind them. Left alone in the office and no longer the subject of Adelle's concerned gaze, Topher slid down off the examination bed. Even in shock Topher's mind and body clamored to be active, to plan and design how to fix everything. Pacing around Claire's office, his fingertips brushing lightly over the bottles, bandages and equipment that littered the tray tables, Topher listened to the snatches of conversation that penetrated from outside. Boyd's voice was a low indistinguishable murmur; but Adelle's voice had risen in frustration, loud enough to be heard within the office.

"What do you mean you don't know where she's gone?" Adelle inquired furiously. Topher's hand hesitated on the bottle of antiseptic as he listened intently. Boyd's muffled voice replied, followed by Adelle. "Forget about the security footage. There were bloody footprints leading from Topher's office." Topher's finger circled the rim of the open bottle as he stood frozen, desperate to hear any news of Claire. It hadn't been long so, she couldn't have gone far, he reasoned. But how long had it been? He couldn't decide whether the entire incident up until Boyd's interruption had taken minutes or hours. It felt as though time had stretched and squeezed, with the moment of Bennett's death becoming infinite as his trip down here to the office passed in the blink of an eye.

Boyd spoke again, his tone calm and measured, though Topher still couldn't distinguish any individual words.  
>"Of course she left her shoes behind," Adelle sighed. "Whoever's behind this was smart enough to orchestrate a murder right under my nose, they aren't going to let themselves be caught that easily. If they've gone to such an effort to get her back untraced they must be planning to use her again." Caught up in the conversation, Topher didn't notice his finger beginning to circle the rim of the antiseptic bottle with increasing speed until his fingertip caught on the edge, tipping it off the tray table. Being plastic rather than glass, the bottle did not shatter, and instead spread its contents in a streak on the floor as it rolled behind a bookcase.<p>

Adelle's voice had now dropped low enough that Topher could no longer distinguish the hushed conversation. So, turning away from the door, Topher followed the trail of antiseptic behind the bookcase. Searching the aisle for the runaway bottle, a numb despair pooled in Topher's stomach at the thought of Claire alone, frightened, and untraceable. Then he saw the five smears of blood on the corner of the bookcase.

Following the trail of intermittent blood smears along the corridor of files, folders and books led Topher to the corner between the final bookcase and the wall. His pulse fluttered desperately in his throat as he rounded the corner, both anticipating and dreading what he would find. Topher knew better than anyone the capabilities and uses of sleeper actives. They were only reliable if there was no possibility of the information being recovered from behind their innocent façade. Wiping the active's mind was one option, though programming it to eliminate itself was an obvious and effective last resort.

She sat huddled in the shadows, her body worryingly still.  
>"Claire," Topher whispered breathlessly, reaching out to touch her. Her skin was warm and he grasped her wrist, frantically pulling her into the light. Claire's hands were slick with blood from removing her shoes with more was streaked across her face and Topher hurriedly looked her over for injuries. She didn't respond to his frenetic examination, her glazed eyes remaining fixed on her bloody hands.<br>"Claire, Claire, talk to me!" Topher pleaded, placing his hand against her jaw to angle her face upwards. Though her face was now level with his, her eyes showed no consciousness or recognition and Topher felt the cold despair return, settling heavy in his stomach.

"It's not real," Claire whispered, though her lips barely moved and her gaze remained fixed.  
>"What? What's not real?" Topher questioned, desperate to break her out of her reverie.<br>"The blood," Claire rasped. "The blood's not real, it's in my head. Everything is in my head. I'm in my head."  
>"No you're not! You're real, you're Claire," Topher insisted, cupping her face in both hands, his thumbs stroking lightly over her cheekbones.<br>"I'm not real," Claire continued, in a monotone that sent shivers through Topher's entire body. "I'm just zeroes and ones and blue light inside a doll made of skin." And then the phrase passed her lips like an echo from a conversation long passed. "I'm just a series of excuses."  
>"No!" Topher exclaimed. "You're as real as I am. You're human!"<p>

That phrase ignited a spark of recognition in the depths of Claire's lifeless eyes, and she raised her hands to press them against the backs of Topher's, smearing blood between them.  
>"Topher?" she asked blearily, as if surfacing from a dream. Topher felt as though he might burst into tears followed by hysterical laughter as he leant forward to rest their foreheads together.<p>

It took a few moments for the confusion in Claire's eyes to shift to understanding and Topher anticipated the reaction that would follow. As Claire's blank expression turned to one of horror and silent sobs of anguish wracked her weary body, Topher held her close, murmuring reassurances. They huddled together in the dimly lit corner as Claire came back to herself, becoming more and more human with each tear.

**Note: So… To anyone who's still reading this story, you are amazing! After a hiatus of a few years (and that's not even an exaggeration) an absolutely lovely review from BundyShoes inspired me to give this fic another go. I can't promise it'll be updated regularly or that I'll ever actually manage to write all that I've planned out. But I know how it feels to find read an unfinished fic and I feel terrible for abandoning this one**

**Having read back through a bit of The Aftermath I can't believe how much my writing has progressed since I wrote it. I'm trying to keep the writing style the same while I continue it to stop it from becoming too disjointed. But, having been three years, it's hard to think back to when I first started this, so I can only do my best. If you're interested in Lost fic and want to check out some of my newer stuff have a look at /users/51KateSawyer15. (I can't figure out how to put in a hyperlink because I'm an idiot)**

**Mostly I just wanted to say a huge thank you to anyone reading this who has been here since 2011 when I first posted this fic. You're so awesome and I love you all xxx**


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